


Three Knives

by Diswrit



Series: Three Knives [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:01:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 156,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27531940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diswrit/pseuds/Diswrit
Summary: While hunting a Trickster, Dean and Sam are dumped through a wormhole that sends them back to 1992. There, they meet a hunter who might be able to send them back to where they came from. But she wants something from them in return. Now thrust into a family feud spanning centuries, neither of the boys are sure if they'll make it out alive, or if they'll ever get home.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/OC
Series: Three Knives [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2012326
Kudos: 2





	1. Stakes

_The righteous seek not revenge, but forgive their enemies._

_For when are the Fallen justified in the pursuit of vengeance?_

_They that persecute the innocent with the iniquitous do not fall,_

_nor are they condemned by others,_

_but by their own hand, in the blindness of anger and hatred,_

_thusly they are cast into the eternal agony of Hell._

* * *

Dean Winchester stepped out of the Impala into the muggy Missouri night, divided between his reluctance to leave the cool sanctuary of his car and the urge to make a break for the hotel room. His plan to crank up the air conditioner and maybe feed the magic fingers a few dollars was all that kept him from collapsing on the blacktop in the hopes that someone would run him over before he drowned from the humidity.

"Bring me back pie," Dean requested of his brother.

"I'll try," Sam replied, rolling his eyes in exasperation at the frequently made request. He started backing the car up and Dean frowned at his quick escape.

"I mean it Sammy! I want some pie!" he yelled after the car. Dean snorted, doubtful that he would actually get any. The saga that was his love affair with pie was nothing short of tragic at times.

Dean strode into his hotel room and locked the door behind himself. He immediately turned on the AC, standing in front of it to intercept its first blast of stale, warm air. He wrinkled his nose and stepped out of the way, knowing from experience that it would take the old, groaning contraption a few minutes to spew air that was anything close to cool. Dean glanced at the bed that beckoned invitingly. He rolled his shoulders and stretched with a loud groan. Plagued by nightmares for the last few weeks, he rarely slept more than an hour or two a night. Now he was exhausted enough to crash, with any luck into a dreamless sleep. Before he settled in for a good six hours rest, however, Dean wanted to cool off. He knew that he was not yet quite exhausted enough that he could lie in a collecting pool of his own sweat without it bothering him.

Dean made his way to the sink in front of the bathroom door and splashed some water on his face, shivering at the cold. He straightened and wiped his face off, exhaling in relief. It had been a long day and he was more than ready for a good night's sleep.

Almost before he finished the thought, Dean's gaze was drawn to a tiny movement in the mirror. His heart missed a beat as he made out a dark figure standing in the bathroom door directly behind him. Eerie green, slightly luminous eyes met his in the pristine glass of the mirror, sending a chill down his spine. A second passed, during which the only sound in the room was the water still pouring from the faucet into the sink. Before, it had been little more than a whisper, but now it seemed louder than a waterfall.

The instant was shattered as the figure in the bathroom reached for Dean's arm. His reaction was immediate and violent.

Dean grabbed the gun from the waistband of his pants and turned to level the weapon at the figure. Whatever it was moved much more quickly than he could though, and he was on the floor before he realized what was happening. The intruder had a foot on the wrist holding the gun, trapping it expertly.

"Dean, calm down," they said, too softly. Dean didn't hear them over the pounding of adrenaline in his ears. His free hand acted almost of it's own accord, curling into a fist and flying toward the intruder's leg. They dodged the blow so quickly that it was almost as if their leg had never been there to start within the first place and retaliated by grabbing his hand and slamming it to the floor. They crouched and with amazing speed and agility, bent themselves around so that one foot stayed Dean's left wrist, their left hand held his right down, and their left knee pressed down into his chest, effectively immobilizing him.

"Dean, it's me," they said, loudly enough this time to catch and hold his attention. Dean stilled beneath them as he examined their face for the first time in the dimly lit room.

It was a girl who looked like she was in her early twenties. Her bushy, light bronze-colored hair fell halfway down her back and the hazel eyes that were now fixed on Dean's seemed to shift as he watched, their hue leaning toward brown, then blue, then green.

She had aged since the last time Dean had seen her, but he still recognized her immediately.

"Alice!" he exclaimed. She grinned at his shocked expression.

"Hi Dean. It's been a while, huh?" she said casually. Dean just stared at her, stunned into speechlessness.

**Years Earlier**

A motel room sought to give the impression of emptiness. Its wastebaskets were empty, the bed was neatly made, the carpet clean as though it had been vacuumed only minutes ago. Despite it's pristine appearance, the room was not unoccupied. It housed a young girl who had rented it three days ago. This girl was currently dressing herself from a refreshing shower. Her attire was black, from her socks and combat boots, to her jeans, right on up to the t-shirt she was pulling on.

When she finished dressing, she meticulously cleaned the shower, collecting hair from the drain and leaving it in a pile on the sink, next to a gun. After scrubbing down the tub, she pulled a lighter from her pant's pocket, and ignited the mostly dried wad of hair, letting it burn away to nothing in the basin of the sink.

She glanced around the bathroom and smiled, satisfied with her work.

As she opened the door to leave she was stopped by a bright flash of light which died down almost as suddenly as it had come into being. She immediately withdrew, leaving the door ajar and grabbing the gun from the sink. She forced herself to keep breath to stay even and quiet, as she stood stone still, listening intently to the sounds in the main part of the room.

"What the hell just happened?" she heard a man ask in the other room.

"How am I supposed to know that?" came another male voice.

"Well where are we?" the first man inquired.

"Again, how am I supposed to know?" the second replied.

"That son of a bitch... damn it! Ok. Look around, see if you find anything that can tell us where the hell we are," the first said.

"Looks like a cheap motel," the second said.

"That's great, Sammy. Real perceptive," the first said. "I meant in a more general sense."

"Okay, you take the dresser, I've got the nightstand," the second, Sammy, said.

From her hiding place, the girl heard drawers opening and closing. She held her breath, knowing she would have to act soon.

"Nothing over here," Sammy said. "Just a bible and a pizza menu."

"So far I've got nothing eith- Oh. Hey, Sam, come check this out," the first man called.

The girl grit her teeth. They had found them.

"What do you make of that?" the first man asked.

"It looks familiar. I've seen this knife before somewhere, but I can't remember where exactly," Sam said.

The girl burst out of the bathroom, training the gun on the two men standing no more than six feet away from her.

"Don't move," she barked. They froze, and turned to look at her. Both were holding stakes, which immediately raised her hackles. The taller of them was holding one of her knives and she had to talk herself out of shooting him on the spot just for touching it.

"Whoa, careful with that honey," the first man said, taking a step toward her. He was the shorter of the pair and wore a leather jacket and jeans. His hair was also shorter than the other man's and his eyes were bright green, in contrast with the deep brown of the taller man's eyes. The girl turned the gun on him and he stopped short.

"One more step and I will shoot you in the nads," the girl said threateningly. Shorty held his hands up and took a step back.

"Okay. No need to get violent or anything," he said placating.

"Put the knife down, slowly and close the drawer," the girl instructed the tall man, Sam. "And both of you drop the stakes."

They did as she said, but their cooperation did nothing to soothe the girl's susiscion.

"How did you find me?" she demanded.

Sam looked at Shorty, then back at the girl.

"Ahh... we uh..." he stammered.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," Shorty said with a forced smile, backing toward the front door. "You see, we were just about to leave, so..."

"Shut up and stop moving, or I will shoot your ass," she said. "This is the last warning you're going to get before I start putting holes in you."

He stopped moving and settled for watching the girl warily.

"Look, we don't want any trouble," Sam said.

"Well it's a bit late for that now," the girl snapped. "Take your clothes off. And don't try anything".

They hesitated.

"Do it!" she yelled.

They did, tossing their clothes in a heap on the floor at their feet, shedding weapons as they went. The girl had expected a few knives, but the further they went, the more alarmed she became. These guys were armed to the teeth - Each carried no less than two guns and three knives, concealed in their waistbands, pockets, and socks.

"Uck, please leave those on," the girl said when the short one went for his underwear. They stopped, left standing in their socks and boxer shorts, clothes and weapons piled before them. Keeping her eyes and gun trained on the two men, the girl leaned down and grabbed a length of rope from under the bed. She tossed it to Shorty, who caught it. The girl nodded at Sam.

"Tie him down. And do it right," she ordered.

Shorty cleared his throat. "Look, aren't you a bit young for this kind of stuff?" he said. "I mean, tying naked men into chairs? Or even being anywhere near naked men for that matter."

"Youth is a state of mind," the girl replied. She pointed at Sam. "Tie him down, now."

Shorty glanced at Sam, who exhaled loudly and sat in the chair resignedly. Shorty tied him down, before turning back to the girl, who had moved to the dresser. She opened a a drawer and pulled out another coil of rope. She nodded to a spot on the floor, a good ways away from the chair Sam was tied into.

"Sit down," she instructed Shorty. He did so and she tossed him the rope. "Tie your feet together," she told him.

He did, keeping his eyes on her the whole time. When he was done, she stared at him uncertainly for a moment, realizing she had boxed herself into a corner.

Shorty seemed to realize her dilemma and chuckled.

"You know, a guy tying his hands together is the kind of thing I would pay to see," he said.

"I could always just shoot you," the girl said. She really did not want to risk going anywhere near this guy and having him take her gun away. But what to do? The easiest solution was the pair of handcuffs currently in her possession, but they were stashed outside in the car. She couldn't just leave Shorty here alone while she grabbed them. She had no doubt that he would immediately untie himself and his colleague.

"You're not gonna shoot me sweetheart," Shorty said cockily.

Oh yeah? The girl thought. This bozo had no idea who she was.

A gunshot was a gamble in a motel, but this one was cheap and out of the way. She was willing to bet that anyone here didn't want the cops to come calling. She shifted her aim from his head to his shoulder and pulled the trigger without a second thought.

Shorty cried out in pain, falling over as he pressed his hands to the wound.

"You shot him!" Sam yelled.

"He'll live. Keep your mouths shut and it won't happen again," the girl said curtly. She sprinted out of the room, to the car she had stolen a week and three cities ago. Seeing it reminded her that it was past time to ditch it. Keep it any longer and she risked the authorities catching up to her on its account.

She would have to worry about ditching the car later. For now, she just opened the passenger side door, which was unlocked. She could not afford to lock the vehicle, since she did not have the keys to the car. She rummaged through the glove compartment quickly, pulled out the handcuffs, and sprinted back into the room. Unsurprisingly, Shorty was making his way over to Sam, grimacing as he tried to keep pressure on the gunshot wound. Unconcerned by his proximity to Sam, the girl tossed Shorty the handcuffs.

"Hands behind your back, put them on," she ordered.

Glaring at her, Shorty twisted his arms around behind him. He groaned in pain and struggled with them, but ultimately succeeded in fastening then. With his arms pulled behind him, his wounded shoulder bled freely, a slow, sure red torrent cascading down his chest to the floor. Shorty's condition concerned the girl. If he died, she would have to clean up afterward, a tedious work that she would rather avoid. She stepped over Shorty to get to Sam and pulled on the ropes to test the knots. Satisfied, she then made her way to the pile of clothes and dug through their pockets.

"So, do you have a name, or should I just call you crazy?" Shorty snapped.

The girl rolled her eyes.

"You already know my name," she said with conviction. Why would they be in her room otherwise?

She pulled an id out of one of Shorty's pockets. "Don't play dumb with me Mr... Santiago?" the girl frowned, fishing through his pockets again, until she pulled out another, then another of his fake ids. She smiled and held them up for him to see. Standing, she dropped them to the ground.

"So... she did send you after me," the girl said. She opened the dresser drawer that the men had been going through when she stopped them. It contained three knives, one silver, one black and one gold. Each of their blades were engraved with symbols. She took the silver one and approached Shorty, pressing the blade against his throat. He swallowed, his eyes darting from her, to Sam, and back.

"I'm guessing that you two are related somehow," the girl started. "That's how she works isn't it? So what are you? Brothers? Lovers? Father and Son?"

"Dude, you are messed up in the head," Shorty said. "Did your mama drop you or something?"

Irked, she pressed the blade more firmly to his skin, the added pressure sending a drop of blood trickling down from his neck, leaving a thin trail of it's own, until it joined the unstemmed flow of blood from Shorty's shoulder.

"You're going to tell me everything I want to know," she told Sam without taking her eyes off Shorty. "Or I'll gut this one slowly while you watch. And you," she addressed Shorty. "You keep your mouth shut unless I'm talking to you."

"Alright," Sam said placatingly. "Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you."

"Your names. Your real, names," she said.

"My name is Sam Winchester. That's my brother, Dean," Sam said. "And you have to believe me, we have no idea how we got here, or who you are."

The girl straightened when she heard their last name, taking the knife away from Dean's throat.

"Winchester? Are you bozos related to John Winchester by any chance?" she asked, her tone changing from threatening to quizzical.

Sam looked at Dean, who raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, he's our father," Sam replied.

"Really? I didn't know he had kids," the girl said. "In any case, where is the bastard? I've been looking everywhere for him."

Sam stopped, unsure of what he was supposed to say.

"He's dead," Dean said in his brother's stead.

"I'm sorry. What got him?" the girl asked, sitting down on the bed.

"A... demon," Sam supplied. The girl got the feeling that it was a half-truth at best. She didn't really care that much, either way.

"That sucks," she said. "He owes me two hundred bucks."

"Gee, you're the sensitive, consoling type," Dean muttered. She ignored him and picked up one of the stakes that Sam and Dean had dropped, examining it.

"So, you're hunters," she said, stating the obvious. Hunting was a business that had a tendency to run in the family and John Winchester was a hunter, in spite of what the girl could say about his level of expertise, or rather, lack thereof.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed.

The girl looked them over again and snorted in derision.

"No offense, but you guys suck if you can get tied up this easily by a fourteen year old," she said.

"Hey, you had a gun on us!" Dean protested.

"So? I've had guns on me. I've always gotten away," she retorted.

"Right," Dean said skeptically. "You know, I would love to sit around all day and trade war stories, but it's cold in here and I'm bleeding, so maybe if you could untie us and direct us to the nearest drugstore-"

"Oh shut up," the girl interrupted. "I'll fix your arm, fine, but you idiots aren't going anywhere."

"Uh... why not?" Sam asked.

"One reason. Your Dad owed me two hundred bucks, like I said. In case you didn't catch on when I said I was looking for him, I want to cash in on that. Since he's not around to pay it off, you guys are going to have to instead," she explained.

Sam and Dean shared a a glance that immediately told the girl they were going to be difficult about this.

"Okay, two problems," Dean started. "First of all, we're working a case, and the thing we're hunting is pretty dangerous."

The girl held up the pine stake. "Let me guess, trickster?" she ventured.

"Yeah," Sam said, a hint of surprise in his tone.

"I've killed two of them," the girl said.

"You're a hunter?" Dean said, his words saturated with cynicism.

"Of sorts," the girl replied. "In any case, I'm probably better than the two of you combined."

Dean's expression turned to one of indignation. "Hey, I don't think-"

"Well," Sam interrupted Dean, "we'd really like to pay back our Dad's debt, but as Dean said, we're working a job, and we don't have two hundred dollars between the two of us."

"That's too bad," she said. "I always collect on my debts. Always. And I have a quick, easy way for you to pay this back, without dropping a penny between the two of you," she said.

Dean chuckled. "Ahh. See, that sounds real interesting, but maybe some other-"

"Or," she said loudly, cutting Dean off. She walked back over to him, and ran the blade of the knife along his jaw. "I could carve some nice pictures into someone's skin."

"We don't respond all that well to threats from little girls," Dean growled. His tone didn't match his appearance in the slightest. Blood loss was starting to take its toll on him. He was pale and beads of sweat were forming on his brow.

"What do you want us to do?" Sam asked.

"I need you to kill something for me," the girl said.

"Are you both ignoring me?" Dean demanded.

"Just sit there and be quiet like a good little boy while your brother and I do business," the girl said.

"What do you want us to kill?" Sam amended.

"Not us. Just you." she corrected him. "I'll be keeping Dean here with me for safekeeping."

"You mean you'll be holding me hostage to make sure Sam doesn't cut and run," Dean snapped.

"Yeah, you could put it like that too," the girl agreed.

"Why don't you let me go kill this thing and keep Sam here?" Dean asked.

"Because it looks to me like Sam is going to be more inclined to actually kill it, and less inclined to try to come back here and try to kill me. And also, you're wounded," she explained.

"And whose fault is that?" Dean snarked.

"It's your fault for being a smartass," the girl retorted. "You're still being a smartass, and you'd better cut it out, or I will."

As she spoke, the knife caught the light from the bathroom, which glinted wickedly along its razor sharp edge.

"Alright, can we stop arguing and just get this done?" Sam asked in exasperation. "What is it you want me to kill?"

"See what I mean? Cooperative," the girl told Dean, before turning to Sam. "A demon. It's been on my ass for a while now."

"You want him to kill a demon? That would be a neat trick," Dean snorted.

"All you have to do is shoot it. It's locked inside it's host, and their lives have been tied together. If one goes out, so does the other," she said.

"Why do you want it dead so badly?" Sam asked.

"That's my business. I just want it gone," she said.

"If you're such a great hunter, why don't you go do it yourself?" Dean asked smugly.

"That's also my business," she snapped.

"Okay, if I kill it, you'll let me and Dean go?" Sam asked.

"Not only will I let you go, your family will be debt free in my eyes," the girl said.

"Whoop dee doo," Dean said sarcastically.

"Fine then, I'll kill it," Sam said.

The girl smiled. "Good," she said.

She aimed her gun at Dean and approached Sam, gripping the knife in her other hand.

"I'm going to let you out. If you try anything, I'll shoot him before you can lay a finger on me," she told Sam. She slashed the ropes on his right arm and then stepped back, letting him free himself from there. He stood and she trained the gun on him, nodding towards the pile of clothes.

"Get dressed. She's in a super eight motel about ten miles south of here," the girl said.

"Can I have a gun?" Sam asked.

"Are you going to shoot me?" she countered.

"No," he said.

"Promise."

"Come again?" Sam asked with a frown.

"Promise you aren't going to shoot me if I give you one of my guns," the girl said.

"I'm not going to shoot you if you give me a gun," he said, slightly unsettled by the bizarre request. This kid seemed a little worldly for something so silly.

She nodded, seeming satisfied, and walked over to Dean. She pressed the blade to his throat again and slid the gun across the floor to Sam.

"Room 218," she said.

Sam paused, a hint of distress creeping into his expression as he looked his brother over.

"Will you stop that bleeding while I'm gone?" he requested. The last thing he wanted was to carry out this task only to return and find his brother dead.

"I'll take good care of him for you," the girl promised. "Now get out of here."

Sam looked back at them one last time, before he let the door close behind him. The girl got up and locked it, peeking out the curtains to make sure Sam was leaving. She watched for a few minutes before she turned back to Dean.

"Now what?" he asked. His breathing was labored and his vision was starting to go gray around the edges.

"Now we wait for your brother to get back," she said simply. She eyed his wound. "I can patch you up while we wait."

"You haven't got any hard liquor lying around by any chance, do you?" Dean asked.

"I do, actually, but I don't intend to waste it on you," she snarked.

"That's cruel," he countered.

"Don't worry. You'll be just fine," she assured him.

She disappeared behind him. He could hear her going through the dresser drawers, but was too dizzy to turn his head to keep an eye on her.

"So, do you have a name?" he asked for the second time since they had met.

"Alice," she replied from the bathroom. He was surprised that she was telling him, considering her first response.

"Alice what?" he pressed.

"Just Alice," she replied.

"No last name?"

"How'd that come about?" he asked.

"Not one that's any of your business," she snapped.

"Ouch, sore topic," Dean said, sensing that he'd stumbled upon something of interest.

"Whatever. It isn't important. What's important to me is that your brother is out there right now, solving my biggest problem," she said from directly behind him. "And everything else, I can handle."

Dean was about to respond, but he suddenly found his neck in the crook of her elbow. She held him flush against her and pressed a rag over his nose and mouth. Dean smell something sweet, so sweet it made him want to throw up. He held his breath and struggled against her hold, recognizing the sickly odor of chloroform.

"Stop moving, or I'm going to make you," Alice warned. He almost wrenched himself from her grasp, but she growled and tightened her grip, blocking his windpipe. When she released the pressure a moment later, Dean couldn't stop himself from taking a deep, ragged breath. As soon as he did, he started to feel numb. His struggles subsided, despite his efforts to keep fighting. Alice slipped a thick rubber band over the rag and stepped back, watching him slump to the floor. Dean fought unconsciousness, tried to squirm enough to dislodge the rag from his face, but he couldn't even feel his body anymore, much less tell it what to do.

"Don't fight it. It's going to make it easier for me to fix your arm," Alice explained, her tone surprisingly soothing.

Dean had no intention of giving up, but he didn't have a choice anymore. As the chemicals saturated his system and did their work, his eyelids slid shut and he slipped into darkness.


	2. The Deal

Dean's bout of drug-induced unconsciousness was interrupted by a horrible searing pain in his shoulder. He jerked upright screaming, but his shouts were muffled by a rag in his mouth.

"Quiet! Let me get the exit wound!" Alice snapped at him from behind.

Dean forced himself to focus his attention away from the pain and take a second to evaluate his situation. He was tied into the same chair Sam had been. It seemed that Alice had taken the time to redress him, at least from the waist down.

"Moron! Hey!"

Alice's sharp voice grabbed Dean's attention and he turned toward her only flinch away as he came face to blade with a white-hot knife.

"Come on, lean forward!" she ordered impatiently.

Dean realized what she was trying to accomplish and did as she asked. The second his back was exposed, Alice pressed the flat of the blade against the exit wound on his shoulder. Dean bit down hard on the rag in his mouth, unable to suppress a groan of pain as he felt and smelled his flesh being seared.

Then it was over and though his shoulder was left throbbing, the bleeding had stopped entirely. Alice yanked the rag out of Dean's mouth unceremoniously and offered him a plastic cup of water. He glared at the liquid suspiciously and Alice rolled her eyes.

"If I wanted to drug you again, I would just smother you some more," she said pointedly. "You want the water, or not?"

"Fine," Dean grumbled unhappily. Despite his reservations, he drank deeply from the cup when Alice held it to his lips. He felt like he was about to die of thirst, probably, he thought grouchily, because she shoved a rag in his mouth.

Alice set the gold knife down on the nightstand let it cool and retrieved the silver one from the drawer. With a beleaguered sigh, she plopped down on the bed and started flicking through the channels, remote in one hand, knife in the other.

"How'd you get that knife hot enough to cauterize a wound?" Dean asked. "Because I know from experience that Bic lighters won't do that."

"Well your lighter must suck ass," Alice snarked without taking her eyes away from the television.

"How'd you do it?" Dean asked insistently.

Alice turned her head to fix him with an annoyed glare.

"If you're just gonna to sit there running your mouth, I'm shoving a sock in it," she warned.

"Right," Dean muttered. Still, he opted to keep quiet for a while.

They sat in silence. Alice seemed perfectly at ease in what Dean felt was a rather awkward atmosphere. To distract himself, he took the time to look around as much as he could from where he was sitting. Sadly, there wasn't a whole lot to see. The room was very neat. His jacket had been hung up and she'd folded his shirt and put it on the dresser. The bed was perfectly made, there wasn't any garbage anywhere, including in the garbage can, which he thought was odd. In fact, the only thing out of place in the room were the bloodstained patches of carpet that indicated everywhere Dean had been. Overall, the state of the room puzzled him somewhat. Teenagers tended to trash motel rooms. In the end, Dean's curiosity got the best of him.

"Look, I really don't want a sock in my mouth, but have you got OCD or something?" he asked, gesturing around the room.

"Have you ever heard of an OCD case with their boots on the bed?" she shot back. "No. I just like to cover my tracks. When I leave a place, I leave it exactly as I found it."

Dean frowned.

"How old are you anyway?" he asked. She stared at him for a moment, considering his question, before shrugging.

"What the hell. Fourteen. At least, for a few more weeks," she said.

"Where are your parents?" he asked.

"Don't have any," she replied.

"Legal guardian?" Dean pressed.

"Dead."

He thought about asking her if she'd killed them, but decided it would be ill advised.

"And uh, how long have you been hunting?" he continued.

"My grandma used to take me along with her when she went hunting," Alice said. "She would let me toss holy water on the demons she caught, and draw the devils traps to snare them. When I was three, she let me read the Sancta Missa for her, so that was my first exorcism."

"When you were three?" he asked.

"Well, it was July eighteenth, 1995, so I was technically three years and five months," she said.

"Because the five months makes a huge difference," Dean said. "That's ridi-" He stopped suddenly, realizing something didn't add up with her story. "Wait, 1995?" he asked.

"That's what I said," she said.

"It's 2006 now, you can't be fourteen," Dean said. "If you were three in 1995, you would be..."

He trailed off, counting in his head. His math was bad under the best circumstances and he had just been shot, drugged and woken rudely by a hot knife pressed to his skin.

"Nevermind," he grumbled when he realized she was right. She was about thirteen or fourteen.

Alice cleared her throat.

"It's not 2006," she said.

"Yes it is," Dean insisted.

"No, it's 1992," she corrected him.

"It is not! Look, kid, I don't know what you're on-"

"Oh my god!"

Alice groaned loudly and opened the nightstand drawer, producing a newspaper. She got up and held it out for him to see. It was dated March 4th, 1992. He looked up at her, eyes wide.

"You say you were hunting a trickster?" Alice asked, folding the newspaper up and sticking it back in the drawer before retaking her place on the bed. Dean nodded silently, still processing this new information.

"Sounds like it dropped you through a wormhole," Alice said, scribbling something on a notepad as she spoke.

"And you uh, you know that how?" Dean asked.

"Educated guess," she said. "There aren't too many forces out there that know about wormholes and there are even fewer who can use them. In fact, you would have to be a god to do it. Which tricksters are. So, there you have it."

Dean let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. His mind reeled and all he could do was stare blankly at the wall in front of him as he struggled to reconcile this new information with what he already knew about the world.

* * *

Sam walked into the hotel office and up to the desk. The boy sitting behind the counter was maybe nineteen or twenty.

"Hi," he said. He waited for a response, but the kid behind the desk didn't even look away from the television in the corner. Sam cleared his throat before continuing.

"I'm, uh, staying in room 218 and I dropped my room key down a gutter," he told the clerk. "I was wondering if you had a spare, or someway you could let me in?" he asked.

"Could I see some ID please?" the kid deadpanned.

"Uh... My wallet's in my room," Sam lied.

"Okay, whatever," the kid said. He produced a room key from beneath the desk and handed it to Sam without so much as glancing at him. Sam stared at the key incredulously, hardly believing it had worked.

"Thanks," he said.

"Okay, whatever," the kid repeated. Sam left the office quickly and crossed around to the other side of the motel in his search for room 218. An old man went past and Sam shot him a quick smile, waiting until he disappeared around the corner.

Sam pulled his gun out, slid the key into the lock and turned it slowly. He swung the door open quickly and stepped into a dark, seemingly empty room. He left the door cracked open and stepped into the room cautiously.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's polite to knock?" came a woman's voice from behind him.

Sam whirled around, pointing the gun at a figure in the shadows behind the door. He hesitated, unable to bring himself to fire. Was this the demon, or just a human caught up with it?

"Honestly, it's amazing how a hundred years took all the class and courtesy out of the world," she sighed, stepping into the light which streamed in from the window. She was tall, blonde, and bore a passing resemblance to the girl who had sent Sam to kill her. That likeness, however, was not what made her seem so strikingly familiar to him.

"Ruby?" he asked incredulously. The smug smile fell from her face.

"How do you know my name?" she demanded.

"Ruby, it's me, Sam. What the hell is going on?" he asked, lowering the gun.

Ruby's eyes narrowed and she advanced on Sam slowly.

"How do you know me?" she asked, her voice thick with suspicion.

"What do you mean, how do I know you?" Sam demanded. "You saved me from those devils a few months back!"

Had she forgotten? Sam wondered.

Ruby was toe to toe with him now, scrutinizing his expression from about a foot and a half below his chin.

"Seems like I would remember saving a sexy thing like you so recently," she commented, looking him over analytically. She cocked her head to the side, curiosity apparent in her expression. "What's your angle with this little ruse?"

"I'm not lying," Sam said hotly.

Before he knew what was happening, Sam found himself flying backwards. He hit the wall and would have had the wind knocked clear out of him if the punch to his gut hadn't already stolen his breath. Ruby was in front of him again in a flash, one hand around his neck keeping him from catching his breath fully, the other twisting his wrist until he was forced to drop the gun.

"But you did come here to kill me," Ruby said, kicking the gun to the side.

Sam choked in response, but to his surprise, Ruby relaxed her grip on his throat. He sucked in a deep, desperate gulp of air.

"I didn't know who I was coming to kill," he rasped quickly. "If I really wanted you dead, do you think I would have taken the time to talk to you?"

A look of realization crossed her face.

"Alice sent you, didn't she?"

"Depends. Is a Alice a psychotic kid who likes playing with knives?" Sam inquired.

Ruby chuckled, seemingly amused by Sam's description.

"I'd say that about sums her up. So, she's finally getting with the program," Ruby sneered. Her fingers tightened around Sam's throat again, and she pushed him up into the air as high as she could reach. Sam was forced onto his tiptoes.

"How about this," Ruby drawled, taking her time to speak while Sam suffocated. "I don't remember saving your sorry ass, and to be honest, I don't believe I ever did. But you're kinda cute. So I'll let you out of this alive, on one condition. You give Alice a message for me. Tell her..."

Ruby paused, her eyes wandering as she pondered something. Sam's lungs screamed for air and his vision started to grow dim.

Suddenly, Ruby's face lit up with an evil grin.

"Tell her, Allison really misses her," Ruby laughed.

That was the last thing Sam heard before he lost his battle against unconsciousness.

* * *

"So. Me and Sam have been... magically zapped back in time?" Dean asked.

"Seriously, you sound like you've never heard of anything like it before," Alice said condescendingly.

"Yeah, that might be because I haven't," Dean snapped.

"Whatever, spare me the rant about how it's impossible," Alice said, rolling her eyes. "You know, for a hunter, you're awfully skeptical."

Dean ignored that last comment. He had more questions.

"So, how is it that you can be three years old in 1995, and 14 in 1992?" he asked.

"I've had my fair share of trickster troubles," she said shortly.

Dean opened his mouth to ask another question, but Alice interrupted him.

"So when did John kick it? What year?" she asked rudely.

Dean glared at her. He knew she was trying to change the subject and didn't appreciate her methods.

"Sorry, when did your DAD kick it?" she asked, a intentionally cruel edge to her words.

"Has anyone ever told you you're a bitch?" Dean shot back with a glare.

"Yeah, lots of people," she said dismissively. "So is it just you and Sam, or do you have any other family?"

"Do you want to trade stories?" Dean snapped, half hoping she would back off and half actually wanting to know what this kid's deal was.

"I wouldn't mind," Alice shrugged. "I'll tell you all about my family, you can tell me all about yours."

"Okay. You first," Dean challenged.

Alice launched into her story without hesitation.

"Never knew my parents. My grandmother raised me and my older sister, Allison. She's ten years older than me and... disappeared... after grandma died."

Dean didn't miss the flash of pain that crossed her features when she mentioned her sister.

"I've been on my own ever since," Alice finished quickly. "Your turn."

"Not so fast. How'd your grandmother die? Don't spare me the details," Dean said. If she was going to be mean, he was going to return the favor.

"If I tell you what happened to her, I'm going to expect details from you in return," Alice warned.

"Let's go," Dean replied.

"A demon killed her," Alice said shortly, like she wanted to get it out as quickly as possible.

"Oh. Let me guess, the same demon you just sent my brother after," Dean ventured.

"Gee, Sherlock, hope you didn't pull anything figuring that one out."

Despite himself, Dean felt bad for the kid. He could tell there was a lot of pain hiding under the tough act she put on, not that it excused her actions. Still, he understood.

"I'm sorry about your grandma."

"Yeah. Me too. So, your turn."

"Well..." Dean fumbled a bit, trying to decide where to start. "Me and Sam, our Mom died when I was four. He was just a baby then, so he doesn't remember it."

"What got her?" Alice asked.

"Demon. Anyway, that just left me, Dad and Sam. Since Dad died it's just the two of us."

"And your Father? How did he die?" Alice asked.

Dean turned his eyes away from her intense gaze, instantly regretting their deal.

"Come on Winchester. A deal's a deal," Alice nagged.

Dean snorted, cursing her internally.

"Yeah, whatever. He sold his soul," he said.

"Why'd he do that? What did he get in return?" Alice pressed.

"Look, if I tell you all the hows and whys, I'm gonna go back and get your hows and whys," Dean threatened.

Before Alice could reply, someone knocked on the door. She sprang up from the bed, taking the knife with her and crouching to retrieve a bottle of what Dean assumed was holy water from under the bed.

"Who's there?" she called.

"It's me," came Sam's voice from outside. Alice stalked over to the door silently, unlocking and opening it. She flung the water at Sam, who stepped into the room a moment later, dripping and visibly unhappy.

"What happened?" Dean demanded, concern coloring his tone as he spotted the bruised mess that was Sam's neck.

Sam ignored him, focusing on Alice. "This demon you want me to kill? I know her," he said.

"So? Is she dead?" Alice asked.

"No," Sam said.

"Who was it Sam?" Dean asked.

"Ruby," Sam replied.

"Ruby- The Ruby? The one with the demon killing knife?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. And remember how I said that knife looked familiar?" Sam asked. Alice backed away from him quickly, holding the knife behind her and grabbing a gun off the dresser.

"It's Ruby's knife?" Dean guessed.

"Yeah. And the craziest thing about all this was Ruby didn't seem to know me. So I'd like to know what the hell is going on here?"

"Yeah, you might want to sit down," Dean warned him. "Do you know what the date is today?"

"August 28th," Sam said immediately.

"Nope. It's March 4th. 1992," Dean corrected him.

Sam stared at him blankly for a second, before he sat heavily on the bed.

"The trickster," Sam realized aloud. "He must have dropped us through a wormhole, or something."

"Like I said," Alice pointed out with a triumphant smirk.

"Right, so how do we get back?" Dean asked.

"I have no idea," Sam said.

"Hey, neither of you are going anywhere until you kill that demon," Alice protested.

"Her name's Ruby," Sam put in.

"Does it matter? She has to die," Alice said.

"Well apparently she's not supposed to, because fifteen some odd years from now she saves my ass with that knife you're holding," Sam said.

"The only way anyone could get this knife away from me is by prying it out of my cold dead hands," Alice hissed.

"But this has nothing to do with us now," Dean realized. "Our Dad's still alive in this year, so just find him and get him to pay you back the two hundred bucks."

"It has everything to do with you now," Alice snapped. "You're stuck here and I'm one of the only people on the planet with the know-how and the resources to get you back to where you belong. So, Winchester, I think it would be in your best interest to make absolutely certain that I stay alive long enough to tell you."

Sam stood, turning to face her.

"Tell us, now," he said, his voice low and threatening.

"Sam, watch it, she will shoot you," Dean warned.

Alice cocked the gun, punctuating his words.

"Look, all you need to do is kill this demon and I'll not only tell you how to get back home, I'll send you on your way myself," she said.

"And if we say no? We can probably find out how to get back ourselves," Sam countered testily.

"Then I'll kill both of you, since you'll no longer be of use to me and you know more about me than I'm comfortable with," Alice said, her tone flat.

"Right," Sam said, dubious of this claim. "You know, shooting a person is one thing, killing them is another."

"You're right. It's a bitch covering up after yourself when there are bodies involved. But I've gotten a bit more proficient at it over the years," Alice said coldly.

"Sammy, back off," Dean warned.

"You aren't going to kill me," Sam told Alice confidently.

"Not unless you give me reason too," Alice replied.

Sam pulled out the gun she'd given him and aimed for her heart.

"You aren't going to shoot me," he said.

"And you can't shoot me," Alice said, her tone creeping toward annoyance. She swung her gun around to point it at Dean's head.

"Whoa, whoa whoa!" Dean exclaimed.

"I'm about to blow your brother's brains all over the wall. Shoot me," she said.

"Sam, just put the gun down," Dean entreated of Sam.

"Shut up Dean!" Sam yelled.

"Butt out Winchester," Alice said at the same time. "Shoot me if you can," she told Sam. He glared at her and clutched the gun more tightly, his finger hovering over the trigger.

"Do it!" Alice yelled. Sam's hand started to shake as he fought to make good on his threat, though what he was fighting against, he couldn't say. Finally, he growled in frustration and lowered the gun. Alice smirked, lowering her weapon in response.

"If you're going to do business with me, you should know that you can't break a promise to me," she said.

"What are you?" Sam demanded.

"Human. Hunter. A mystery you'll never really be able to solve," Alice said.

"Her name's Alice, if it makes anything any less mysterious," Dean offered after long moment of tense silence.

"I know, Ruby told me," Sam said. He paused, remembering the other thing Ruby had said. "Oh yeah, she had a message for you, Alice."

Alice clenched her jaw.

"I'm not interested in hearing anything that bitch has to say," she said venomously. "Unless by some chance she told you she's planning to do the world a favor by blowing her own brains out."

"No, actually," Sam said. "She said that Allison misses you."

Dean picked up on the name immediately.

"Allison? Like, your sister, Allison?" he asked Alice.

Alice froze, her expression somewhere between pain and fury. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, her face was unreadable.

"Do you guys want to be stuck here forever, or do you want to get back to where you're supposed to be?" she asked, calm and cool as ice.

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance, which told Alice everything she needed to know.

"Help me kill this bitch and you're home free," Alice said.

"Is that a promise?" Sam asked somewhat mockingly.

"Yes," she replied, ignoring his tone.

"So, where do we go from here?" Dean asked. "Hopefully it involves me getting out of this chair."

"First of all, you two are both going to promise that you won't kill or hurt me unless I ask you to," Alice stated.

"Unless you ask us to?" Sam echoed. "Why is that in there?"

"That's my business," Alice said. "Now promise."

"I promise I'm not going to kill or hurt you unless you ask me to," Sam recited.

Alice turned her gaze to Dean, who repeated the phrase grudgingly. Alice cut his ropes and stepped back as he stood. Dean immediately made for the table where his shirts sat, neatly folded.

"Can we at least have a little more of the back story between you and this demon?" Dean asked as he pulled the shirt over his head.

"What more do you want to know? It tore my family apart. I'm after revenge," Alice replied. "Pretty simple, really."

"So why don't you just kill it yourself?" Sam asked.

"That's my business."

"Uh-uh. No way. You give us some answers or we walk away," Sam insisted.

"You can't," Alice said smugly.

"Why not? I don't remember anything about sticking around that promise we just made you," Sam said, standing over Alice menacingly.

"Because you need me to get home," Alice said, looking up at the obscenely tall man without any sign of hesitance or fear.

"We can find someone else to help us," Sam said.

Alice laughed out loud.

"Good luck with that," she snorted. "Bottom line is, Winchester, I know more about Tricksters than anybody else on the planet. I'm the only one who's been dropped through one of their little time holes and made it anywhere close to back where I came from alive," she said.

"Wait, anywhere close to?" Dean asked.

"You got dropped through a portal? When were you from originally?" Sam asked, jumping on the tidbit of information.

"That's about as much your business as why I want this demon dead," Alice said.

"Then I guess we're at an impasse," Sam said.

"Guess so," Alice replied steadily.

Sam switched tactics, softening his gaze and taking a step back so that she wasn't drowning in his shadow anymore.

"Look, we just want to get home," he said pleadingly.

Alice snorted in amusement at the look on his face.

"And I would love it if I had a home to get back to," she said bitingly. "Puppy dog eyes aren't going to work on me.  
"Now, since you totally failed to kill her like you were supposed to, Ruby knows that I know where she is. My best guess is that she'll head back to base, report to the higher authority there," she said.

"Who's the higher authority?" Dean asked.

"Demon by the name of Grinda. Nasty bitch. In any case, all this excitement has me starving, so here's my pitch; we grab a bite to eat, then head over to the motel to see if she left anything behind."

As she spoke, Alice grabbed a bag from under the bed and gathered the knives from the drawer. Carefully, she wrapped the gold and black ones in cloth before packing them away. She then lifted the hem of her shirt and tucked the silver knife into a sheath clipped onto the inside of her black jeans. She looked back at Sam and Dean.

"Are you coming, or are you going to try to find out how to get home by yourselves?" she asked.

Without waiting for an answer, she walked out the door. Sam glanced at Dean, who hesitated for a few seconds, before sighing unhappily.

"Let's go," he grumbled.

* * *

_Special thanks to Purplestan_ _for helping improve the continuity of the story! :)_


	3. Bait

Sam and Dean almost walked past Alice. She was in the passenger seat of a car that was so encrusted with mud they could hardly tell it's color or make. Alice pulled a few weapons, a cask, and an envelope from the glove compartment.

"Whose car is this?" Sam asked, suspicion coloring his tone.

"How should I know?" Alice retorted. She grabbed a hammer from under the seat and stashed it in her bag along with all the other items she pulled from the car.

"But that's your stuff," Dean guessed.

"No, I'm sure it belongs to some random guy who keeps hunting gear stashed in his car," Alice snarked. She got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind herself. "Let's get a move on. I'm starving. And you're paying."

They found a small diner a few blocks away. Alice picked a table all the way to the back of the restaurant, right next to the fire exit. They sat, Alice holding the bag on her lap as her eyes darted around the diner.

"So what's your plan past checking out the motel to see if we can find out where the base is?" Sam asked.

"Oh, I already know where the base is," Alice said. She plastered a smile on her face as the waitress walked over. "I'll have a chicken sandwich and fries, with a coke," she said, looking at Sam and Dean.

"I'll have a cheeseburger and a beer," Dean said.

"Uh, same for me," Sam said. The waitress walked away, and he looked at Alice. "If you know where the base is, why are we going back to the motel?" he asked.

"That's my business," Alice said.

"That's the story of your life, isn't it?" Dean asked.

"Everyone's got personal business. I've just got a little more than most people," Alice said. The waitress came back with their food and they ate in silence. When they were finished Dean got up to pay. Sam and Alice followed him up to the counter.

"Meet me at the motel the demon was staying in," Alice said abruptly, before walking out the door ahead of them.

Dean and Sam stared after her through the windows as she jogged down the sidewalk. Dean paid and they followed in her footsteps, but she was nowhere to be seen.

"I hope you remember where that motel is," Dean grumbled at Sam.

"Of course," Sam said. "It's not far. So, what are we going to do?"

"Kill this demon for her and get the hell out of dodge," Dean said simply.

"Is that really the smart thing to do?" Sam asked. "I mean, if Ruby isn't around in fifteen years to save my ass, I'm dead."

"We don't know that for sure. And I'm telling you, she must have had some ulterior motive there. I mean, seriously, demons don't just pop in and save hunters from certain death on a whim."

"I know Dean, but whatever her reasons are, they involve keeping me alive. How bad can that possibly turn out?" Sam asked.

"From where I'm standing? Pretty bad Sam," Dean said. "And it's not like we have a whole lot of options here. Alice is offering to send us back and all we have to do is gank this one broad."

"But we could probably find out how to get back on our own," Sam argued.

"Yeah, but long would that take?" Dean asked pointedly.

"I don't know. But I really, really don't like this Dean," Sam said.

"Do you see me dancing for joy? I don't like it either. But does anything really ever happen to us that we like?" he asked.

Sam didn't respond to that.

"And besides, the way I see it, this whole thing is your fault," Dean went on.

"My fault? How's that?" Sam demanded.

"Come on, man! Loki wouldn't have been able to dump us through a wormhole if you would have run the bastard through the moment you had him instead of stopping to chat," Dean said.

"Chatting? I was trying to get important information out of him," Sam protested as they approached the motel. "I mean, for all we know, the superintendent could still have been alive."

"Yeah sure. Knowing what we do now, I'm sure he's really enjoying the dark ages," Dean joked darkly. "Is this the place?"

"Yeah. Where's Alice?" Sam asked, looking around.

"I'm sure she'll be here. In the meantime, let's check the room out," Dean decided.

"Shouldn't we wait?" Sam suggested.

"Why?"

"Well for one thing, we don't even know what we're doing here," Sam pointed out. "I mean, what are we looking for here? Are we even looking for anything?"

"I don't know about you," Dean poked Sam in the chest, "But I'm on a demon hunt. I'm going in to see if there's anything in there that can help us."

"Like what?" Sam pressed.

"What's the room number?" Dean asked, ignoring Sam's question.

Sam rolled his eyes.

"218," Sam provided.

"Lockpick," Dean requested, holding his hand out. Sam shot him a look and Dean went on the defensive.

"Hey, mine's in the car..."

Dean trailed off, panic flashing across his face. Sam laughed out loud at his expression.

"Relax, Dean the car'll be fine," he assured him. "Time travel, remember?"

Dean did relax at that.

"Right. She shouldn't be sitting there for more than a few minutes," Dean said. "That's cool, but I still need your lockpick."

"I don't have mine on me either," Sam said.

"What? What'd you do to get in before, knock?" Dean demanded.

Sam pulled the key from his pocket and dangled it in Dean's face. He snorted and snatched it from Sam.

"Degenerate," he shook his head.

"What can I say man, the kid at the desk doesn't make enough to give a crap about what goes on around here," Sam said. He fell silent as Dean swiftly opened the door.

The room was as dark as it had been when Sam entered earlier. Dean tried to switch the light on, but nothing happened. Sam glanced at the light fixtures and quickly diagnosed the problem.

"No bulbs," he observed.

"Hey!"

The shout startled both Winchesters and drew their attention to the bathroom. Sam relaxed slightly when he saw that it was just the desk boy who had given him the room key earlier.

"What are you doing in here?" the boy demanded.

"Uh... left some cigarettes behind?" Sam offered lamely.

"Are you sure you're not here for my sister?" the boy asked.

Sam frowned, but didn't have very long to wonder what the kid meant. His eyes clouded black and the situation turned deadly in a split second.

The demon charged at Sam, who didn't have time to brace himself. The force of their collision propelled Sam backward, sending him flying through the window.

The demon turned on Dean, who barely ducked in time to avoid a blow that would have sent him flying after Sam. He threw a punch that connected with the demon's jaw and heard a satisfying crunch. In retaliation, the demon grabbed Dean and pushed him back so hard that the wall cracked when he hit it. Fazed, Dean stumbled, struggling to regain his senses and stay on his feet. The demon was on him again before he could blink and a few more supernaturally strong punches had Dean on the ground. The demon loomed over him, grinning as it reached for him again.

Before it could touch him, it cried out suddenly, arching its back and howling in agony as the room exploded with orange light. It poured from the demon's mouth and eyes and shone through it's body, making it's skin appear translucent. Inside the host, Dean swore he could see something dark swirling angrily.

Then, just as suddenly as it had flashed into existence, the light blinked out. The demon went silent, and fell to the ground at Dean's side. Alice stood over him, holding a knife that dripped with blood in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. She bent down and wiped the blade off on the demon's shirt as Dean struggled to his feet.

"Sam!" he called urgently, limping over to the window. Sam lay outside on the pavement, groaning.

"I'm fine," he grunted as Dean helped him to his feet. "Is that demon dead?"

"Yeah," Dean replied, awestruck. "Guess you weren't as full of shit as I thought."

Sam almost managed to laugh. When he had first described Ruby's miraculous demon killing knife to his brother, Dean had insisted it was impossible. Luckily for Dean, Sam had more important things on his mind than gloating at that moment.

"Alice," Sam called, storming into the motel room to find Alice shaking out a blanket.

"Hey, check the wastebaskets," Alice ordered without so much as glancing in his direction.

"What are we looking for here that's so damn important?" Dean asked irritably.

"Anything of hers she may have left behind," Alice answered. "Hair, anything that might have her spit on it, like a food wrapper, or-"

"What the hell? Are you telling me I just got my ass handed to me so that you could steal some demon's trash?" Dean demanded.

"No, you got your ass handed to you so I could suss out how many demons were still hanging around this motel," Alice replied, feeling around under the bed. "As for the trash, there are spells that could make this job a lot easier for you two. But I need something of hers if we're going to use any of them... how does that old saying go about trash and treasure?"

Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.

"You're saying you used us as demon bait!" Sam snapped.

Alice shrugged, examining the sink.

"Nice. You do know we could have been killed?" Dean pointed out angrily.

"Better you than me," Alice said, disappearing into the bathroom. She emerged a moment later, empty-handed.

"She cleaned up after herself pretty well," she said. "Damn it. Whatever, let's get out of here. The cops'll be crawling all over this place for sure now."

She started out, and they limped after her.

"Hey! I think we need to get something straight," Dean said when he caught up with her. "We, are hunters, just like you. And hunters don't let others hunters be bait!"

"Oh please. We're not as similar as you think," Alice said. "Correct me if I'm wrong here; you're career hunters, right? The job is basically your whole life?"

Neither of them contradicted her, and she nodded to herself.

"I, on the other hand, hunt as a hobby," Alice explained.

"A hobby?" Sam asked.

"You seemed pretty enthusiastic about marking down those omens back there," Dean said.

"And a bird-watcher is pretty enthusiastic about marking down... I don't know, whatever bird-watchers mark down about birds," Alice said.

"You said that your grandmother's been taking you hunting since you were a baby. That doesn't sound like something someone would do if it were just their hobby," Dean said.

"I said it was my hobby, that doesn't say anything about my grandmother," Alice said. "I'm not wasting my life doing this crap job, even if it is fun to kill something every now and then."

"Well if you can't respect us as fellow hunters, how about as human beings?" Sam asked.

"Not a chance. Human beings are scum," she said.

"Right, I don't care if you respect us or not, next time let us know what's going on so we don't think we're going to die," Dean said.

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't. It'll depend on the circumstances," Alice shrugged. Dean shook his head, but figured that was the best he would get out of her. Sam opened his mouth to argue further, but Dean shot him a look and grudgingly, he kept his silence.

"So, where are these Demon headquarters?" Dean asked.

"In an abandoned factory off the highway about 60 miles from here," she said.

"Great. So now we head back, grab the car I assume you stole and get moving?" Dean asked. He noticed that they were heading in the direction of the highway.

"Nope. That car's definitely got an APB out on it by now. We're hitchhiking," Alice said.

"Didn't anyone ever teach you that hitchhiking's dangerous?" Dean asked.

"I learned it the hard way," Alice said, wincing slightly. "But it's the best way I have to travel, and the few dumbasses who did try anything funny didn't live to tell the tale."

"Right. And what if we can't find someone willing to take two men and a teenager?" Dean asked.

"We walk," she said sardonically, rolling her eyes at him. "We'll get picked up, ok?"

"I'm liking this plan more and more," Dean muttered.

* * *

A few hours later, they caught a ride with a pair of hippies. The couple had a lot of questions for them, but Alice expertly fended off most of them. They thought it was a bit odd when Alice and the Winchesters asked to be dropped off in the middle of the highway, but for the first time during the ride, didn't question them. The factory was visible from the road, forlorn and crumbling in the distance.

Alice unzipped her bag and rummaged around until she pulled out a bottle of whiskey. She opened it and prepared to take a swig.

"Hey!" Sam cried, grabbing her hand. "What's that?"

"Provisions," Alice said shortly. "Let my hand go and maybe I'll consider sharing."

"You're too young to be drinking," Sam scolded, snatching the bottle from her hands. Alice glared daggers at him.

"I'm not going in there sober," she growled, making a grab for the alcohol. Sam held it up out of her reach. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"It's part of the plan," she said, her calm tone obviously forced.

"What kind of plan involves getting drunk before walking into a factory full of demons?" Sam demanded.

"The kind where my main role is to distract said demons," Alice retorted.

Dean frowned. "And while you're doing this..."

"You and Sam'll come in the batcave way. I'll be the main attraction and most, if not all, of the demons in there will flock to wherever I am. Especially Ruby. The plan is for you to flank them and make it a bloodbath."

"That plan sucks, Alice," Dean interjected.

"Since when are we on first name terms, Winchester?" she shot back.

"Since you didn't give me a last name," he replied smartly.

"So what, all these demons are killable?" Sam asked.

"No, but most of them don't need to be," Alice answered. "Now, before I walk into the meat grinder, can I have my liquid nerves back?"

Sam considered for a moment, before shaking his head at himself.

"Whatever. You're not my kid," he snorted, letting Alice snatch the whiskey. She took a long swig, wrinkling her nose.

"Yeesh," she muttered. She glanced at Sam sideways. "That was a dick move, but I'll still share if you want," she offered, extending the bottle.

Sam shook his head, but Dean reached over and took the bottle from her.

"Don't mind if I do," he said.

"What happened to no drinking on the job?" Sam asked with raised eyebrows.

"Special circumstances," Dean said. "You know, no amount of alcohol is going to make this plan suck less."

"If you have a better one, I'd love to hear it," Alice snapped.

"Do this assassin style," Dean suggested. "Sneak in this aforementioned batcave way and pick these bastards off until we get Ruby, then haul ass outta there."

Alice, rummaging through her bag, was already shaking her head.

"My plan's better."

Dean didn't think so, but he kept quiet.

Alice pulled the two wrapped knives from her bag. She took the silver one from its sheath and handed it to Dean.

"You already know this one kills demons," she said. She handed Sam the black one. He inspected it more closely. The blade material appeared to be basalt.

"That one won't kill a demon, but it'll cause them so much pain that nine times out of ten they'll smoke out if you so much as nick them with it," Alice explained.

Alice knelt, dug a shallow hole in the dry ground and put the gold knife in. She covered it over and drove a stick into the ground to mark the spot, before standing.

"Do not lose those knives, or I will skin you both alive," she threatened, taking the whiskey back from Dean. She turned and started walking and they followed.

"Once you're inside, find me," she instructed. "If I know Ruby, she'll torture me before she kills me, so follow the screams."

"Awesome," Dean muttered.

"Whatever you do, don't let them see you. Good luck," she said. She put the whiskey bottle to her lips and took a long draught, before taking off toward the factory at a run.

Dean watched her go, then turned to Sam.

"You know, if she were a little older, I'd be hitting on her so hard," he said.

Sam gave him an odd look.

"Dude, creepy," he said with a shudder.


	4. Empathy

Alice took a deep breath to steel herself and pushed the door open. It swung inward easily, but noisily. Alice was instinctively unsettled by the racket, but reminded herself that it was good. The more demons she could draw to her show, the easier it would make Sam and Dean's job.

Alice stepped into a large empty room and immediately felt unseen eyes locking onto her. She realized that she still wasn't quite as drunk as she would like to be if she was really going to do this. She also knew she couldn't get too drunk, or escape would be complicated. She stopped in the center of the room. The only sound had been the echo of her intentionally loud footsteps on the concrete floor. Without that noise, the space seemed completely, eerily empty. Alice took a deep drink from the bottle, wincing at the burn as the acrid liquid slid down her throat, pausing when she heard soft footsteps behind her. She lowered the bottle from her lips and continued to stare ahead.

"Alice," a voice came from behind her. A voice she'd heard so many times before in her life. But this wasn't her big sister. Not anymore.

"Bitch," Alice said, her tone cordial in contrast to her words. She turned and saw her sister's body. Allison looked exactly that same as she always had. Except that her eyes were pitch black.

"Ouch, it still bites," the demon said. "I thought you would drop the attitude. You know. After what happened to Grandma."

The demon laughed, and Alice took another swig from the bottle.

"Out of curiosity, who was that man you sent after me earlier?" Ruby asked.

"Why didn't you ask him while he was still breathing?" Alice retorted.

"You killed him? Gods you're cruel. How'd you get him to do it in the first place?" she asked.

"He owed me a favor," Alice said. "And he brought me back an interesting piece of information."

"Did he now?" she asked.

"Yes he did... Ruby," Alice said.

It was small, barely perceptible, but Alice caught the flinch of surprise that flitted across Ruby's features.

"See, it all makes so much more sense now that I know who you are," Alice went on.

"Does it make you feel better, knowing that you're the one who caused all this?" Ruby asked nastily.

"Not really. But it gives me something to work with," Alice said.

"How could that possible help you?" Ruby asked.

Alice took another long drink.

"I know where you're buried," she smirked.

"Well then, I guess I'll just have to make sure that you aren't around long enough to do anything that I might not like," Ruby said. She eyed the bottle Alice was holding. "You know what Grannie always said about drinking. You'll ruin your liver at that pace."

Alice gave her the bird and took another swig, before hurling the bottle and the remainder of its contents at Ruby. The demon swatted it aside with a hiss before it could hit her.

"I agree," Ruby spat. "There's been too much talk. Let's get to the fun part now."

* * *

A demon lay dead outside of a door that was left ajar. Just within, the Winchesters froze in their steps as the screaming began.

"Sounds like Alice was right," Sam shuddered.

"Let's move," Dean said grimly.

They moved through a room filled with pipes with two doors leading out of it. Dean pointed to Sam, then to the door leading left. He headed for the one going right. He held the silver knife at the ready as he crept through the cold, still halls. The screams sounded out of place, which was odd, since this was just the kind of place he would expect to be haunted by the unnatural. He noticed a leaking water pipe, which told him they at least had the basics turned on here. He absently wondered if demons paid their bills or just ate the bill collectors.

Ahead, the hall split off in two different directions. Dean heard footsteps and ducked into an alcove as a demon walked past. He waited, then kept going straight. After only a few feet,he heard the light padding of footsteps behind him. He turned and plunged the knife into a demon's gut. It screeched loudly as the orange light shot through it. As the dead, empty host dropped to the ground, Dean heard shouting and the thunder of feet rushing toward him.

"Son of a bitch," he cursed. He turned and started running.

* * *

Sam was in a room filled with crates. He heard yelling ahead of him, ducked behind one and lay in wait. He intuited that the demons had discovered Dean and were hard on his tail.

The screams that he assumed belonged to Alice were getting louder. He crept closer and closer to them, occasionally flattening against walls or ducking into alcoves to avoid being seen by demons. He finally peeked around a corner, and saw Alice writhing on the ground in the center of a large room. She was surrounded by a sparse crowd of demons who, as Alice had predicted, had gathered to bear witness to her torture. They laughed and joked among themselves and Sam suddenly understood Alice's refusal to go through with her plan sober.

Ruby stood out from the rest of the crowd. She glared at Alice's twisting, agonized form intently. Sam had no idea what was she was doing, but it was obviously hurting Alice.

Movement from a doorway behind Ruby caught Sam's attention and he groaned internally as Dean's limp form was dragged into view. The demons pulling him dropped him unceremoniously on the floor at Ruby's feet. She took her eyes off Alice to speak with one of the demons who had captured Dean and Alice's screams cut off abruptly. She gasped for breath on the floor and Sam noticed the blood dripping down her arms for the first time.

Sam's gaze was quickly drawn from Alice's wounds to a flash of silver in Ruby's hands.

"Crap," Sam swore as Ruby examined the silver knife.

Sam wasn't the only one who noticed the knife. A murmur swept through the room as the demons whispered to one another.

Suddenly, Ruby fell to her knees, a bloodcurdling, inhuman shriek tearing through the air. Sam flinched, covering his ears to lessen the sudden pain in his ears. As he watched, blood soaked through Ruby's sleeves and dripped from her fingers to the floor. Despite her apparent agony, Ruby held tight to the demon killing knife. Still screaming, she pointed at Alice.

Sam's eyes flew back to Alice, to see her glaring murderously at Ruby. It looked like she was doing to Ruby... whatever it was Ruby had been doing to her only moments earlier.

Alice was not allowed to continue for long. A demon stepped out from the crowd and kicked her brutally in the gut. She cried out in pain and Ruby's infernal shrieking stopped.

"Bitch!" Ruby gasped. She stood, and Sam could see that she was shaking. "That's the last torxing you'll ever dole out!"

She raised the knife over her head.

"Ruby!" Sam yelled, his voice echoing so that every demon there heard him. He felt about twenty pairs of black eyes trained on him as he stepped into sight.

"Oh, so she didn't kill you," Ruby snarled. She hauled Alice to her feet by her hair. "What else did you lie to me about?"

"No lies," Alice panted. She grinned. "Kick-ass acting though."

She punched Ruby in the face, twisting out of her grip and aiming a kick at her legs. Ruby dodged away and retaliated with a swipe of the knife. The tip sliced through Alice's shirt and left a thin horizontal line of blood just below her ribs. Alice ignored the scratch, glancing to the side briefly to see Sam backed into a corner, swiping at demons with the black knife. After the first few demons he sliced open smoked out with shrieks of pain comparable to Ruby's, the others were thinking twice about getting too close to him. He wasn't going to be able to help her right now.

Then she spotted Dean stirring on the ground, forgotten in the excitement.

"Shorty!" Alice called, hoping Ruby wouldn't realize it was a call for backup.

Ruby's lips twisted into an ugly snarl as she lunged for Alice's rib cage.

"I've got three inches on you, idiot!" she hissed.

Alice wanted to laugh out loud at Ruby's narcissism, but didn't have the time. She barely dodged the next flurry of slashes the demon assaulted her with. She was paying too much attention to the knife, however. Ruby landed a kick to Alice's shin, sending her to the ground with a cry. Alice rolled to the side just in time to avoid a savage down cut from Ruby that would have opened her from collarbone to navel. She managed to get back to her feet, but she was off balance for a split second. It was all the opening Ruby needed and Alice knew she had made a fatal mistake.

Before Ruby could slice Alice's throat open, however, a metal pipe connected with the side of her head. It didn't stop Ruby from swinging the knife, but it threw her off balance and gave Alice's backward momentum enough time to get her out of the way.

Annoyed, but unfazed, Ruby turned to see Dean standing behind her, clutching a pipe that was still vibrating from the force of the blow he had dealt. Growling, Ruby advanced on him, brandishing the knife.

"Exorcizamus Te, omnis immundus spiritus," Alice began reciting.

Ruby turned back to her with a hiss and swung the knife. Alice successfully dodged and kept chanting. Ruby was locked into her sister's body, so the exorcism would do little more than annoy her. It was a different story, however, for all the other demons in the room. And once Sam joined in the fight, Ruby would go down. Alice was too busy dodging to keep praying, but Dean picked up on what she was doing.

"Sam, exorcism!" he yelled, knocking a demon to the ground with the pipe.

The demons surrounding Sam had a variety of reactions as he took up the chant. Some covered their ears, some tried to run, some smoked out on the spot. Others, however, became more aggressive and Alice saw Sam flying across the room. Demons were swarming around Dean as well now and he was barely fending them off. All Alice had to do now was concentrate on not being gutted.

"...Omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta..."

Lost in a sea of writhing flesh and curling black smog, Alice could hear Sam doggedly continuing the exorcism.

"Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica," Alice added her voice to Sam's. Ruby landed a cut to her arm and she cried out, leaving the exorcism to Sam. She needed to concentrate on her own battle.

Suddenly, the room was filled with black smoke as the remaining demons fled their hosts. The mass swirled above their heads briefly, before it disappeared. Empty host bodies dropped to the ground, some groaning as they came to their senses, others still.

Alice danced away from Ruby, who tripped over a body and crashed to the ground. Across the room, Sam crawled out from beneath a pile of bodies, while Dean made his way to Alice's side. Ruby struggled to her feet as well, poised to attack the three hunters again.

"Ruby, _stop_!"

The command echoed around them, drawing all eyes in the room to a woman standing in the entrance. She had a dark complexion and brown hair cut into a pixie do. Her thin frame was draped with a brilliant red dress and she wore matching heels. As she sauntered over the bodies littering the floor, her eyes flickered the same bloody shade as her garments.

"Let me finish them, Grinda!" Ruby snarled as her superior approached.

Grinda's eyes narrowed and she raised her hand sharply. Ruby jerked as though she had been slapped and the silver knife flew from her hand into Grinda's.

"You've gone too far, Ruby," Grinda tsked as she examined the blade. "I gave you permission to hunt down the other Smith girl. I said _nothing_ about bringing her back here to wreak havoc on our coven."

"Coven?" Sam whispered to Alice.

"All the demons Grinda controls were once witches who sold her their souls," Alice explained under her breath.

"The others will be fine," Ruby said. Her tone was even, but beneath her placating words lurked malice. "They'll crawl their sorry asses out of the pit and come running back to you. Let me kill these three, so-"

"Fool!" Grinda roared. "If you touch those boys, the retribution that will rain down on our heads will be beyond your puny comprehension!"

Alice glanced at Dean questioningly, but he looked just as confused as she felt. Suddenly, their gaze was broken as they flew back against the wall. Grinda approached them, examining each of in turn. Behind her, Ruby cautiously stalked closer.

"Why? What makes them so special?" Ruby asked.

"My bosses have plans for them," Grinda said simply, stopping in front of Sam. Her eyes lit up as she looked him over. "Especially this one."

Her eyes settled on the black knife that Sam still clutched. She laughed and pried it from his fingers. Her eyes were glued to Sam's the whole time and she barely spared the knife a glance as she tossed it over her shoulder. Alice's eyes widened as she watched it fall, expecting it to hit to concrete and shatter into a thousand pieces. Instead, it lodged into the back of a man who was slowly crawling toward the door. He cried out shortly, before slumping to the ground lifelessly. Alice sighed in relief.

"Don't touch him," Dean growled at Grinda, fighting against her hold on him as she reached for Sam's face.

Alice watched raptly as Grinda stroked Sam's cheek, something close to adoration crossing her features.

"My my," Grinda smirked. "You know, we're almost family, Sam."

"How do you know my name?" Sam demanded.

Grinda was about to respond, but Ruby cut her off.

"Fine," she said. "So the higher ups want these two alive for some bizarre reason. That doesn't mean I can't kill the little bitch."

Grinda grit her teeth.

"If it will stop you from whining about her day and night, then by all means, kill her," Grinda snapped.

"And those two? What do you plan to do with them?" Ruby asked of the Winchesters. She bent down and pulled the black knife from the man's back. Dean didn't miss the look of absolute loathing that crossed Alice's face when Ruby wrapped her fingers around the handle. As though the demon were defiling something hallowed with her touch.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about that," Grinda told Ruby condescendingly.

Ruby stood just behind Grinda, absolute hatred emanating from her.

"Of course not," Ruby hissed. "After all, it isn't my place, right?"

Grinda's grin widened.

"You're learning."

She turned back to Sam to say something else, but never got the chance. Ruby plunged the black knife into Grinda's back and the crossroad demon fell to the ground screaming as steam rose from the flesh around the knife. Sam, Alice and Dean felt Grinda's hold over them breaking and Alice was the first to bolt.

"MORONS! _RUN_!" she yelled as she flew toward the door.

"The knives!" Sam reminded her as the three of them approached their escape.

The door through which Alice had arrived was half open and it beckoned to her urgently, but Alice slowed for a moment to glance back at the demons. She saw Ruby struggling to pry the silver knife from Grinda's grip as the greater demon fought to keep the lesser at bay, while attempting to twist its arm around to pull the knife from its back. Grinda's shrieks filled the air, higher and more piercing than any Sam or Dean had ever heard. Alice froze with indecision, her expression pained.

"We don't have time for this!" Dean yelled. He grabbed Alice by the arm, pulling her along behind him. "Worry about them later!"

He got through to her and she followed him willingly out of the factory.

* * *

Ruby wrestled with Grinda, desperately trying to get the silver knife away from her. Grinda was not locked into her host, but she would fight tooth and nail to stay topside. Unlike weaker demons, Grinda could withstand the power of the holy-water forged blade. Ruby was counting on that. If her mistress smoked out, Ruby would be screwed faster than she could say 'bitch'.

Ruby heard a series of cracks and crunches as Grinda's hand broke under the strain of Ruby's clawing. Still, the crossroad demon held on stubbornly, not feeling or not caring about the pain in her host body's hand. Ruby head-butted Grinda and shoved her hard against the ground. The black knife twisted in Grinda's back and her shrieks, amazingly, grew more shrill. With a final shout of effort, Ruby twisted Grinda's hand savagely into the most unnatural of positions and pushed down with everything she had.

The knife slid into Grinda's gut. With a flash of orange light, Ruby's mistress was dead.

In the silence that followed, Ruby stared at Grinda's corpse, hardly daring to believe it. She was free.

Ruby quickly remembered herself and grabbed the silver knife, leaping to her feet.

She had a brat to kill.

* * *

Dean, Alice and Sam raced for the highway. They saw headlights and their flight became more desperate as they struggled to reach the road before the car passed and left them behind. Alice spotted a stick in the ground and stopped hastily, dust flying up around her as she fell to the ground and started digging frantically.

"Alice!" Sam called!

"Stop the car!" she yelled back, searching frantically through the dirt for the gold knife. She couldn't see through the dust cloud she had created, much less breathe, and she was already short of breath from running. She glanced up, saw Ruby jogging toward her, and shouted in frustration.

Her cry turned to one of pain when something sharp cut into her fingers. Alice grabbed the blade without a second thought and scrambled to her feet. On the road, Sam and Dean had managed to stop the car by throwing themselves in front of it. Alice reached the vehicle and pounded on the door.

"Open the door!" she screeched.

She heard a click as the man inside the car unlocked the doors. She and the Winchesters jumped in, slamming the doors behind them. Through the windshield, Alice could see Ruby getting closer.

"Are those men chasing you?" the driver asked blankly of the Winchesters.

"No, there's something very bad chasing all of us," Alice said breathlessly. "Drive, _NOW_ , and screw the speed limit!"

The man hit the gas and they sped off down the road. Alice glanced behind them, watching as Ruby grew smaller. Now that she was sitting still, Alice could feel the adrenaline pumping through her, chasing away most of the alcohol's effect.

"Fuck!" Alice cursed loudly, startling the driver.

Alice caught a glimpse of her reflection in the window. She could see why the driver had assumed Sam and Dean were chasing her. She was dirty from rolling around on the floor and the cuts she had collected during her battle with Ruby were still bleeding. Her shirt was practically shredded and the flowering bruises on her midsection were blaringly obvious.

Suddenly, the man driving sniffed and started frowning.

"Wait, are you drunk?" he asked, slowing the car practically to a stop.

Alice groaned, realizing he smelled the alcohol on her breath.

"Just a bit," she confessed.

"How old are you?"

The driver turned to glare accusingly at the Winchesters. "How old is this kid?" he demanded.

"She's old enough," Dean said. "Keep driving."

"No, I want you out of my car right now," the man said angrily.

"We don't have time for this. _Drive. Now_ ," Alice ordered sharply.

"No, get out of my car," he said adamantly.

Alice brought the gold knife up in a flash, pressing it to his throat.

"Listen to me you _jerk_ ," she hissed, pressing harder to punctuate 'jerk', "I've been having a really, _really_ shitty year! My entire family is _dead_ , except for my sister, and she's _possessed by a demon_ , who's hell bent on _killing_ me! I just lost two of the last three heirlooms I have from my Grandma, I have more enemies than I know what to do with, and too many bad promises that I have no choice but to keep! So don't assume that since I look young I'm naive, or stupid, or brainwashed, or _kidnapped!"_

She took the knife off the man's throat, though she still brandished it threateningly.

"Drive," she ordered again.

The man complied hastily, scared out of his wits.

"I didn't know it was as bad as all that," Dean said quietly.

"That isn't even half of it Winchester," Alice spat. She swallowed hard and let her head fall into her hands as the gravity of what had just transpired hit her with the same force as a train. A wave of weariness crashed over her, washing away her anger and frustration and leaving her with nothing but the desire to sleep. Sleep and forget.

Alice felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see that it belonged to Dean. She shrugged away from his reassuring touch, straightening as she realized what she must look like.

"I'm fine," she snapped in response to an unvoiced question.

She blinked away the sudden drowsiness that had settled over her without a second's notice. There was no time to sleep now.

The wicked don't rest until our eyes close for good, she thought.

* * *

Ruby ground to a halt on the side of the road, panting from her fruitless sprint. She watched as the car bearing Alice sped away. In spite of the rage that bubbled up inside of her at the thought that Alice had slipped through her fingers yet again, Ruby laughed out loud. It didn't matter that Alice had evaded her this time, because she was truly free now. She had been contracted to Grinda and killing the crossroads demon had been the last step toward what had been Ruby's ultimate goal ever since she had emerged from hell to find that, somehow, Alice smith was still within her grasp. She had a body, the third knife, and nothing to stop her from going after Alice.

"Let's play hide and seek, baby sister," Ruby hissed into the empty night.

* * *

They drove long through the night and on until mid-day, when the man was almost passing out in the driver's seat from exhaustion. Never the less, Alice wouldn't let him stop driving until they reached a sizable city. Before she and the Winchesters parted with the driver, Alice made him promise that he wouldn't tell anyone what had happened to him. The less questions that ended up being asked, the better.

They checked into a hotel using money that Alice had shamelessly demanded from the man who saved them. Sam had stuck up for him briefly, until Alice pointed out that between the three of them, they didn't have a penny. At that, Dean had produced a palmful of pocket change, but it had not stopped Alice from taking their driver's cash.

"So, do you want to tell us what that was all about back there?" Sam asked her.

"No," Alice said, flopping down face-first onto one of the two beds in the room.

"I'm not sure it's optional. After what we just went through? We could have died back there! We deserve answers!" Sam insisted.

"Tell you what, I'll swap information with you," Alice snapped. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know if you tell me why Grinda seems to think that you and your brother are so important."

"This isn't going to be an information exchange, Alice," Sam insisted. "Tell me what-"

"Sam, leave her alone," Dean cut in.

Alice hadn't been expecting that. She looked at him quizzically. He sat in a chair at the small motel table, pulling his shoes off.

Sam seemed even more surprised than Alice that Dean was taking her side and floundered awkwardly for a moment.

"Someone should go get food. I'm starving. Bring some aspirin too," Alice said to break the silence.

"Right. I'll go," Sam said. No one said anything to counter him, so he left.

"What was that?" Alice asked.

"What was what?" Dean retorted. He threw himself stomach-first onto the empty bed the same way Alice had.

"You just sided with me against your brother," Alice reminded, shifting slightly to face him. "Why would you do that?" she asked, puzzled.

Dean looked like he was considering his words very carefully.

"That back there... you're sister's still in there with that demon. I guess I just..." he trailed off.

"The last thing I want is pity," Alice said dryly.

"I'd call it closer to understanding," Dean clarified.

"Hmm. I guess I can live with that," Alice decided.

"I get why you can't kill her yourself."

"You do?" Alice frowned.

"Yeah, I mean... who could kill their own sister, right?"

"I'm not weak!" Alice scowled. "I can do what needs to be done. That's not Allison in there anymore. It's the bitch that killed my grandma."

"So why don't you just do it?" Dean challenged.

Part of Alice wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but another, stronger part of her couldn't live with him thinking she couldn't bring herself to end this demon out of love for Allison. There was also a tiny, tiny voice in the back of her head that told her Dean deserved an explanation after what they'd just gone through.

"I made a bad promise," Alice sighed.

"I don't understand what it is with you and promises," Dean frowned.

"I told you I killed two tricksters? The first one I made a deal with. My grandmother was hunting him. She had him trapped and would have killed him. I let him go and in exchange, he made it so no one could break a promise to me. But he just had to go and be a trickster and he slipped in that as a drawback, I have to keep all of my promises. Unluckily for him, I only promised to set him free. I never promised I wouldn't kill him. So I did.

"The second one was his brother. He came after me for revenge and knocked me and my family back around 1890. I tracked him down to try and get him to send me back, but he wouldn't so I just killed him instead." She shrugged. "We ended up in 1990, which is a lot closer than I'd hoped."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. I guess I'm still drunk. Or maybe I just want to vent. Get it all out. I've never... talked about it before. I never had anyone to talk to about it."

"Well, while you still feel like sharing, do you want to tell me why this demon's coming after you so hard?" he asked. "Call me crazy, but that back there... that sounded awfully personal."

Alice was silent for a few minutes and Dean thought that she had closed up again before she finally spoke.

"It's my fault."

Her tone was completely dead, devoid of emotion.

"What happened?" he asked.

"While we were in trapped in 1890, things got complicated. I did some bad things to get to the trickster who sent us back there. One of those things was torturing and killing a Witch to make her tell me how to summon them," she said.

"Ruby?" Dean asked. Alice nodded.

"I don't understand... she's a demon," he said.

"Not back then she wasn't," Alice sighed. "Back then she was just another Smith, giving some distant family a place to wait out a storm."

"That... That's just... You mean..."

Dean struggled to process what Alice had just told him.

"Ruby is related to you?"

"Very distantly, like I said."

"And... she wasn't always a demon? So... how the hell does a person just become a demon?"

"She was the kind of witch who sold her soul to gain her power. After we... after _I_ killed her, she went to hell."

"That follows, but what does it have to do with her changing... species, I guess," he asked, now hopelessly confused.

"What do you think a demon is Dean? It's just a soul that gives in to hell's torments. Stops being human and becomes something so dark that hell rejects it, sending it to walk the earth," Alice said.

"Huh. That's an interesting theory," Dean said.

"It's not a theory. It's a fact," Alice said.

"How do you know it is?"

"Knowledge passed down through my family."

There was a moment of silence and Alice's expression darkened further.

"None of us ever imagined she would come back to haunt us. When we finally killed the trickster, it didn't exactly undo what he'd done, but it came close. It was 1990. Close enough for government work, right?

"Ruby found us not long after we settled down and started back hunting. She possessed my grandmother first. She was already stabbed, already good as dead, but I didn't know that. I had the knife, I had the chance to end it then and there but... I couldn't do it. I couldn't stab her in that body. I let her smoke out. If I would have been stronger, she'd be fucking dead, and Allison-"

Alice fell silent, taking a breath to compose herself as she felt tears welling in her eyes. She turned her face away from Dean, refusing to let them fall.

"After Ruby was gone... While my grandma was dying, she made me promise I would take care of Allison. She always thought I was so much stronger than Allison. She was so proud of me. In fact, that's the last thing she ever told me. 'I'm so proud of you, Alice.' If only she knew."

Alice buried her face in the scratchy motel blanket, wiping her eyes as discreetly as possible while Dean connected all the dots.

"Your grandma died and made you promise to look after your sister," he said. "And you promised you would kill Ruby."

"Yep. Catch 22 of the century," Alice groaned.

"Alice, I... I understand you better than you realize," Dean said.

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"I went through the same thing," he said.

Dean didn't know why he felt so compelled to spill his guts to her. Maybe it was the thought she could understand. That there were so few people who could. So few people who had killed their parents. Neither of them had actually landed the killing blows, but it didn't matter. They both lived with the same guilt, the same crushing weight. The same awful sense of responsibility.

"I told you my father sold his soul, but I never told you why. We were in this accident. I was in pretty bad shape. I was dying. So Dad... he went out and sold his soul at the crossroads."

"In exchange for your life," Alice realized. Dean nodded

"Before he went, he made me promise to look after Sam," he said.

"So you think we're alike," Alice said.

Dean shrugged and Alice regarded him for a moment.

"Maybe we have some things in common," she finally said. "It doesn't make us alike."

While Dean considered her words, she covered her head with a pillow.

"I hope your brother comes back soon," she groaned, "or you're going to have trouble keeping that promise you made your Dad."


	5. Smith

Dean had just dozed off when he was woken by a knock at the door. Alice was out cold on the other bed and the knock wasn't enough to rouse her. Dean got up and peered through the peephole to see Sam waiting outside. He let him in and immediately noticed the Mcdonald's bag Sam carried. Dean grinned and rubbed his hands together eagerly as Sam set the food down on the table.

"What'd you get me?" Dean asked.

"Cheeseburger," Sam replied.

Dean dug through the bag, looking for his burger while Alice stirred at the smell of food. Dean spotted a happy meal box and raised his eyebrows at Sam, who was grinning smugly.

"I really hope that's for you," Dean muttered as Alice sat up, stretching.

"Foooood," she yawned, eyeing the Mcdonald's bag. "Did you pick up aspirin?"

"Yeah," Sam said, tossing her the bottle. It landed on the bed next to her and she pried the top off and popped three pills. She swallowed them dry with a grimace, before setting them down on the nightstand. When she turned back, Sam was holding out the happy meal.

"What's that?" she demanded.

"Food," Sam replied innocently, keeping a straight face.

Alice glowered at him as she snatched it out of his hand. She fished the tiny hamburger out of the box and held it up.

"Even 14 year olds who haven't spent their entire lives hunting monsters and gods eat more than this," she snapped.

"Oops. Guess I never was too good at babysitting," Sam said.

"If anything, I'm the one babysitting you," she shot back.

"Right. And who's plan was it that lost the knives, did _not_ kill Ruby and put me and Dean on their radar?" he asked.

"Sam, are you really gonna do this now?" Dean asked.

"Are you really gonna side with her?" Sam asked, turning on him. "We don't know who she is, or even what she is. For all we know, she could be another demon, or something just as bad."

"I kind of doubt that," Dean said.

"Why?" Sam demanded.

"I don't know, call it a hunch," Dean said, his voice rising a few notches.

"Okay, both of you, stow it. This is so stupid," Alice said.

She stormed over to the table and grabbed a few of the tiny packets of salt that came with the food. She tore them open, closed her eyes and tossed them in her face. She spluttered, licking her lips and grimacing, trying to flick the salt out of her eyes before she opened them to fix Sam with a pointed glare.

"I would go over holy water and silver with you too, but Ruby's got my bag, so unless you two have any on you..." she trailed off, waiting for them. Neither spoke, and Alice nodded curtly and retook her place on the bed. She rolled her eyes at the tiny hamburger, but bit into it nonetheless.

"In the future," Alice said between bites, "if you're going to insult me like this, at least have the decency to get two happy meals for me. And I want chicken sandwiches."

They ate in silence after that and Dean noticed Alice watching Sam closely. Sam pretended he didn't notice her intense scrutiny.

Alice finished first and stood.

"I'm hopping in the shower, so if any demons show up, try to hold them off until I can get dressed," she said, before disappearing into the bathroom.

"She's something else," Dean said, staring after her absent-mindedly.

"What was that?" Sam asked.

"Nothing."

Sam polished off the last of his fries with a yawn.

"I'm getting some shuteye," he announced. He climbed into bed and pulled the covers up over his head without bothering to so much as take his shoes off.

Dean took his time with the rest of his food and turned on the television. He clicked through the channels at a leisurely pace, occasionally commenting on what he found aloud.

"Dude, the Ben Stiller show?" he said aloud. "I remember watching this douchefest like, a decade ago."

In response, Sam snored more loudly.

"Pst!"

Dean turned in his seat to see Alice poking her head out of the bathroom door, her hair wrapped tightly in a towel. She put a finger to her lips, glancing at Sam. Dean nodded and turned back to the TV.

"PSSST!"

Alice beckoned him more urgently and he turned back to her.

What? he mouthed.

Alice held up her index fingers, extended one toward Dean, and kept the other closer to her. She brought the one furthest from her closer, until it touched the other. Then, she moved her right hand up until it was inches from the side of her head, splayed her fingers, pulled her hand back quickly, and repeated the motion. After that, she held up five fingers, before forming her hand into another fist with a cocked index finger. She rested her front knuckles against the palm of her left hand, and ticked her fisted hand back and forth a few times.

Alice did all this so quickly that Dean had a hard time keeping track of where her hands were. He frowned at her, shook his head and shrugged to show that he had no idea what she was doing.

Alice facepalmed quietlyy and took a deep breath. She pointed to Dean, then to herself, then to the door.

Five minutes, she mouthed emphatically.

Meet you outside? Dean mouthed back quizzically.

Alice nodded and disappeared back into the bathroom.

Mystified, Dean checked his watch. It was just after six p.m. He waited for five minutes, as instructed, before creeping out of the motel room. Alice was making her way through the parking lot toward him.

"How'd you get out here?" Dean asked. He noticed her clothes, a new black shirt that was a size or two large on her and bright pink sweatpants. "And where'd you get those?"

"Went out the bathroom window, and filched these from a laundromat about a block away," Alice explained quickly. "Dean, do you know ASL?"

"What's that?" Dean asked.

"American Sign Language."

"Oh. So that's what you were doing back there," Dean realized.

Alice rolled her eyes.

"You guys are the most undertrained hunters I've ever met," she groaned.

"Sure, whatever. What are we doing out here?" Dean asked.

"Does your brother usually have salt on his fries?" Alice asked out of the blue.

"What?" Dean asked, taken aback by the seemingly random question.

"Sam. Does he put salt on his fries?"

"I don't know," Dean said. He frowned. "Are you trying to say something here?"

"I noticed two things back there that I'm pretty sure you didn't," Alice started. "First of all, Sam hasn't looked me square in the eyes since yesterday. Secondly, he didn't use salt on anything. And there were a lot of demons floating around freely back there, out of their meat suits. I think one of them might have gotten to him," Alice said.

"You think Sam's possessed?" Dean asked.

"I want to know what you think before any conclusions are drawn," she said.

"Oh. Well gee, thanks, I'm so glad I get a say in whether or not my brother's possessed," Dean said sarcastically.

"Dean," she warned.

"I don't think so Alice. I mean, based on the fact that he hasn't looked you in the eyes?" Dean asked doubtfully. "Have you considered that maybe it's because you've got creepy eyes?"

Alice raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Creepy eyes?" she demanded.

"Well..." Dean floundered, forced to go on the defensive. "They change color. You honestly don't think that's odd?"

Alice rolled the eyes in question, then turned and walked away from Dean.

"Hey, where are you going?" he called after her.

"To get a crucifix, so I can make some holy water and settle this, because you are no help," she yelled back.

"I'll come," Dean said, hurrying after her. Alice stopped him with a shake of her head.

"No, you stay here and watch your brother," she said, lowering her voice.

"You don't have any money," Dean pointed out. He instinctively reached into his pocket, only to find it was empty. Right, Sam had all the money at the moment.

"I'll figure something out," Alice said. "Maybe I'll creep someone out with my creepy eyes and get them to give me five bucks."

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but she was already jogging away.

"That's not fair. You're too young to be playing the guilt card like that!" he yelled after her. She gave him the bird over her shoulder before she disappeared around the corner.

Dean went back to the room, closing the door softly behind him, retaking his place at the table. He noticed that the bed was empty, but figured that Sam had gone to the bathroom. This was confirmed when he heard the toilet flushing. Sam stepped out a moment later.

"What was all that about?" Sam asked.

"What was all what about?" Dean asked cautiously.

"I heard you yelling something about guilt," Sam said, looking amused. Dean leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on the table as Sam took the seat across from him.

"Alice. I don't even know what to think about her Sam," Dean began. "I mean, she's fourteen and I feel like I should be treating her like she's fourteen. But I don't know, she's just... old. I mean, whenever she opens her mouth, it looks wrong because she's got this fourteen year old voice and she's using it to say things fourteen year olds just don't say... just shouldn't say, anyway."

Sam pushed Dean's feet off the table rudely and rested his elbow on the table.

"Look, she's a hunter," he pointed out. "Like us. She grew up in the life. It's all she's ever known. I mean, if you're looking to make a kid grow up fast, is there a better way to do it?"

Dean didn't reply. Sam was just stating what he already knew.

"And I mean, think about some of the stuff she's been through," Sam went on. "Watching her grandmother die and not being able to do in the demon whose fault it was? And then that demon comes back and takes her sister from her? It's nothing short of tragic."

Dean was nodding in agreement, when he stopped abruptly. He stood, trying not to move too quickly as he crossed the room. Putting distance between himself and Sam.

"Yeah, I guess," Dean said slowly, wishing he had a gun, or holy water, or something. "Funny thing is though, I just found out about that myself. And uh, you weren't around when she told me."

"Well... I uh..." Sam floundered for a moment. He gave up quickly and smiled. "Oops. Guess my big fat mouth got me that time."

Sam blinked and when he opened his eyes they were black. He stood and took a step toward Dean, who took a step to the side in response.

"You know, your brother has got a lot of interesting thoughts," said the demon possessing Sam.

"Oh really?" Dean prodded, stalling. His eyes darted around the room, instinctively searching for a weapon. Even if he had one though, what was he going to do? Not hurt Sam, that much was certain.

"Oh yes," the demon purred. "In fact, most of them are the kind of interesting thoughts that my superiors would be very interested in hearing."

"Why?" Dean asked. Maybe he could keep the demon talking until Alice got back. Maybe she would have holy water prepared. Maybe she would pick up some salt too. Maybe... maybe this was a shit plan with too many maybes.

"2006? That's quite a ways off," the demon said. He tapped Sam's head. "And this melon is all full of facts about it. And about the years preceding it."

"Wow, I didn't know demons liked betting on horse races and... stuff," Dean said.

The demon took another step towards him with his brothers legs, now practically on top of him.

"You know I really would love to chat," the demon said, "but I think Alice is going to be back soon. How about you?"

Suddenly, Sam threw his head back and black smoke billowed forth from his mouth. Dean watched with initial relief, followed by bewilderment. Why would the demon smoke out now?

His confusion quickly turned to horror as the smoke rushed him. He was thrown back against the wall by the force of the impact and he slumped to the floor. His body was limp for a moment, before his eyes opened, blackened.

* * *

Alice was gone longer than she planned. She found a cheap wooden crucifix easily enough at a gas station and pick-pocketed a man while she was there. When she counted her spoils, she found herself with a staggering one hundred and forty dollars.

"Yes!" she delighted quietly, mentally patting herself on the back.

She bought a bottle of water along with the crucifix and ducked into the bathroom with her merchandise to bless the water.

Her next stop was a hunting store. The clerk looked from the fake ID, to the silver knife she was trying to buy, to her and then back. She tapped her foot impatiently.

"I don't know," he said indecisively.

"Look, I could throw in an extra twenty," Alice offered, switching tactics. "Strictly off the books, if you know what I mean."

"Right. Look, I'm sure you're a great kid and all, but I can't do this. What if someone gets hurt?" He handed her the id back. "Go on. Spend that hundred bucks on a bicycle or something."

Alice stared at the outstretched id for a moment, cursing people like this. Good people. God, they could be so ignorant.

She took the ID, and the hundred or so dollars off the counter. Instead of turning to go, however, she snatched up the knife, hopped over the counter and backed the clerk up against the wall.

"You seem like a pretty nice guy," she said, holding the knife ready to slash. "So I'm going to give you a choice. You can let me buy the knife so I can keep myself alive, or I can cut your throat, and walk out with it."

The clerk stared at her, holding his hands out. "You're making a mistake. Think about the consequences-"

"Doesn't matter," Alice interrupted him. "In the end, I'm already damned. One more soul on my head won't change anything."

She could see that he was scared now. Whether it was her cold, ruthless expression, the way she held the knife expertly, like someone who knew how to use it, or just the fact that he was cornered with a knife on him, Alice couldn't say.

"G-go," he finally croaked.

Reviewing her options quickly, Alice shifted her grip on the knife and lashed out with it quickly. She landed a hard blow to the clerk's temple with the butt of the knife and he crumpled to the floor, groaning. She kicked him hard twice before he finally lost consciousness.

Alice took the opportunity to replace the equipment she lost at the factory. She grabbed a duffel bag and filled it with her choice of weapons. She preferred knives for the most part, having been trained rigorously in hand to hand combat. It was what she considered her strong suit. She was also a decent shot of course. If you were a hunter you had to be, but Alice didn't like guns too much. They made more noise, left a bigger mess and were more traceable than knives. It was also easier, at least for Alice, to land a blow up close and personal with a blade then it was to stand back while monsters and demons charged at her, firing and hoping that her bullets hit something that hurt.

Before she left, Alice found and deleted the security footage from the time she had arrived. She left through a back door to avoid attracting attention. A glance at the watch she had taken from the clerk told her that almost an entire hour had passed since she left Dean alone with Sam. She grimaced and quickened her step.

In spite of her lateness, Alice stuck to the smallest, emptiest streets. It cost her time, but it was worth the extra effort to avoid running into more inquisitive citizens who simply could not grasp the concept of a fourteen year old being allowed weapons. Granted, it was true that most teenagers had no business with silver knives and guns, but Alice wasn't most teenagers.

She took the long way around the laundromat. She could see a woman raising a fuss inside and didn't really need that on top of everything else.

Finally, she reached the hotel and knocked on her door. Dean answered and stepped aside quickly to let her in.

The first thing Alice saw when she walked into the room was Sam, bound and gagged at the center of a devil's trap that had been drawn in the middle of the room. Alice cocked an eyebrow at Dean as she plopped the bag down on the bed.

"Wow. You actually listened to me," she said incredulously.

Dean didn't meet her eyes. Instead, he watched Sam, who was glaring at him intently.

"I thought it couldn't hurt," Dean said casually.

"Kay. Here goes," Alice said, popping the cap off the water bottle. She stepped toward Sam, but Dean grabbed her arm, stopping her. Alice startled, surprised by his firm grip.

"You don't need to," he said.

"Why not?" Alice asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. She tried to meet Dean's eyes, but they danced away from hers deftly.

"I know he's possessed. His eyes showed through," Dean said, glancing at Sam yet again.

Alice shrugged away from Dean's hand and regarded him as she backed away.

"Oookay. What I'd like to know though," she said, reaching into the duffel bag discreetly, "is how exactly you managed to get a demon tied up and into a trap without any weapons?"

Her hand closed around the hilt of a hunting knife.

"I'm just that good," Dean smirked, turning to face her.

"No one's that good," Alice said.

She hurled the holy water at Dean and he screamed as it hit him. Steam rolled off him in waves, confirming Alice's suspicions. She dived to the side, trying to cut the ropes holding Sam in place, but Dean knocked into her before she could reach him. They tumbled to the ground together, Alice struggling to free herself from his grasp before his hold could become inescapable. She twisted her elbow around, slamming it into Dean's face as she tried to squirm away from the demon. It didn't do much to help her, and she knew that even without demonic strength, there was no way in hell she could beat Dean in a wrestling match. She slid the knife across the floor in Sam's direction, knowing that if she kept it, she would end up being skewered. At least this way Sam might get his ass out and help her.

Dean managed to get an arm around Alice's neck and she choked as he pulled her tight against him. She twisted her arms around to claw at his face, but he pulled harder, ignoring her scratching.

"Ruby's not gonna be happy with me," he said, just loudly enough for her to hear. "She wants to do you in herself. But you know what? Since you're going to hell anyway, she can just pop down and visit you from time to time."

Alice's struggles grew weaker as he laughed. The world around her faded away and all she could feel was the burn in her lungs as they screamed for oxygen. Soon though, even that sensation began to fade.

Vaguely, Alice felt a sudden cold wash over her, heard someone screaming. She knew from experience that this was what dying felt like, but she was too far gone to panic. She waited for Death to appear, call her to him, but strangely, he didn't come.

Suddenly, Alice could breathe again. She gasped, dragging in air after she'd gone too long without it.

"Alice? Alice, can you hear me?"

The air was sharp and it chafed Alice's throat as she sucked it in desperately - too desperately. She choked and strong hands turned her onto her stomach as she coughed uncontrollably. As her body convulsed, the pain hit her in a sudden wave. She remembered this too, the ache that spread throughout your entire being after coming too close to death.

"Alice, calm down and just breathe!"

She recognized Sam's voice and realized he was the one holding her. She gasped for breath between the hacking coughs that slowly subsided.

"What happened?" she panted as soon as she could speak.

"I got your knife and got loose," Sam explained. "Soaked Dean with holy water and wrestled him into the trap."

Alice had finally recovered enough to look around. Dean was, indeed, seething in the center of the devil's trap. He was soaking wet and Alice realized she was as well. She shivered and it occurred to her that the icy cold that had come over her may have been nothing more than the chilly water. Perhaps she hadn't come quite as close to Death as she thought. It would explain his uncharacteristic failure to appear.

"How do you feel?" Sam asked.

Alice rolled onto her back and got to her feet shakily.

"I'm good. You?"

"Yeah," Sam replied.

"What really happened while I was gone?" Alice asked, sitting on the bed as her legs threatened to give out. She covered her weakness by rifling through the duffel bag next to her.

"Oh, nothing too exciting," Sam said sarcastically. "I was possessed for a while. Then... well, you can probably guess."

Alice nodded, glancing at the demon currently hosted inside Dean.

"Bitch figured out I was onto her and switched bodies," Alice ventured.

The demon hissed at her from within the devil's trap.

"I'm right here, whore," it snarled.

"Her?" Sam asked Alice, ignoring the demon.

"She's from Ruby's coven," Alice explained. "They're all women... or were at some point, I guess."

"Huh," Sam said. "That explains why she kept calling Ruby and the others her sisters."

Alice nodded. She retrieved a stick of chalk and a box of salt from the duffel bag and tossed them to Sam.

"Trap that door and the window in the bathroom. Salt the perimeter," she instructed him.

He nodded and knelt to begin while Alice turned to study the demon, which still refused to meet her eyes. She could only guess that it was familiar with the methods she and her family employed.

"Alright. I've got a few questions for you. Then I'll go ahead and send you back to hell," Alice promised.

"I'm not answering any of your questions," the demon said.

"You don't have a choice," Alice said. "Let's see if I can remember all of it. (1)Daemonium, in nomine deus, quae mando tibi ille loquetur veritas! Loquetur!"

Sam listened while he drew a simplified devil's trap in front of the door. He understood bits and pieces of what she was saying, but could not work out what it meant as a whole. As far as he could tell, it wasn't an exorcism.

The demon smirked when Alice finished the incantation.

"Really? That old racket? You know it doesn't work," she said.

"In my experience, it does," Alice said confidently. "Let's get started. Grinda mentioned that Sam and Dean were important to her bosses. Why? Tell me everything you know."

"I'll bite this man's tongue off," the demon warned.

"Don't you dare!" Sam shouted, leaping to his feet. "If you touch a hair on his head I will do so much worse than send you back to hell!"

"Ooh, I'm scared," the demon mocked. "What could you possibly do?"

"Sam, leave this to me," Alice said.

"It's my brother, Alice!"

"And I know how to handle this. Just make sure we aren't interrupted," Alice said firmly.

He didn't budge and she sighed.

"Sam, I'm not going to hurt him. Satisfied?"

"Promise," Sam demanded.

"I promise I'm not going to hurt your brother," Alice swore, holding Sam's eyes. Sam didn't visibly relax, but nodded tightly and went back to the trap he was drawing.

Alice picked up the water bottle that had been emptied and dropped onto the floor sometime during Sam's struggle with the demon. She refilled it from the bathroom sink and dangled the crucifix into the water. This time, Sam recognized her words as the blessing to sanctify the holy water.

"(2)Benedicite domine hanc aquam. Repellere omni malum daemonum et Satanae et perdere. In nomine unius veri Dei precor."

Sam brushed past Alice into the bathroom to draw his traps and lay down the salt. She waited until he closed the door, before grabbing a chair and jammed it under the door handle. The demon laughed as Alice turned back to her.

"(3)Loquetur!" she commanded the demon.

"You've lost your touch," it tsked. "Shame. Maybe God isn't with you anymore."

Those words cut her deeply, but Alice refused to let it show. She couldn't afford to let this bitch find anything to torment her with.

"Doesn't matter," Alice said blithely. "I'm sure I can get it out of you myself."

"Can you? I seem to recall you just promising Sammy there that you wouldn't hurt me," the demon said smugly.

"No," Alice shook her head, "I promised I wouldn't hurt his brother. You aren't Dean. You're wearing his body and I know he's still in there somewhere, but he isn't the one driving. So I can do whatever I feel like to you," she said.

The demon's smile didn't falter.

"Good old Alice. Always spotting the loopholes."

Behind her, Alice heard Sam knock on the bathroom door.

"Alice?" he called.

She ignored him and rolled up her sleeves, baring the cuts on her arms. The demon's eyes flitted to the deep gashes, three on the the sides of each of her forearms, a few inches below her elbow. She tried to hide it, but Alice saw the demon's eyes linger on the cuts and caught the brief flash of fear that at the reminder of who the young hunter was.

"So. What's the deal with Sam?" Alice said. "Grinda said that he was like family."

"She was talking to me," the demon hissed.

Alice narrowed her eyes. It hadn't quite been a lie, but it didn't ring completely true either. She flung some of the holy water at the demon, who screamed as it soaked her clothing, leaving a layer of wet against Dean's skin that wouldn't stop burning. Alice circled her, flinging more at different angles, while Sam pounded on the bathroom door frantically.

The demon fell to her knees and Alice crouched down to its level. Its teeth were clenched, the water in its clothes still steaming and hissing against its skin. No doubt in serious pain, the demon met her eyes to deliver a scathing glare. Alice held them, smiling triumphantly. The demon quickly realized its mistake and averted its eyes, but Alice already had what she needed.

"I've got you now," she gloated. "Sure you don't just want to give up?"

"Go to hell, bitch," the demon snarled.

"In that case, this is my pleasure," Alice said. She bent down again, searching the demon's face. "Dean, I know you're in there. Sorry about this."

She straightened and fixed the demon with a burning glare. Alice harbored a lot of anger and hatred, and now she focused that reservoir of rage, directing it at the demon.

"(4)Animam ad animam," Alice muttered beneath her breath. "Cor ad cor, tenebrae ad tenebrae. Meus dolor est tuum."

Suddenly, the demon spasmed, hitting the ground as its legs gave out. It writhed in agony, a long, continuous scream tearing through the air.

The door to the bathroom flew open with a bang as Sam kicked it in. He burst out, surveying the scene with horror.

"What are you doing to him?!" Sam demanded, shouting to be heard over the demon's shrieks.

"Dean's not being hurt," Alice assured him.

The screams grew louder and Sam turned in time to see three long gashes, mirror-images of Alice's, appear on Dean's left arm as if drawn there by an invisible knife. Identical cuts opened on his right. Sam grabbed Alice, shaking her.

"Stop it!" he yelled.

Behind him, the demon stopped screaming and lay prone on the floor, shivering as the cuts on Dean's arms bled steadily.

"Let me go, Sam!" Alice snapped, trying to break free of his grasp. In response, Sam held her more tightly, his fingers threatening to leave bruises on her upper arms.

"Don't do that again," Sam warned.

"Or else? It's necessary!" Alice yelled.

"No it isn't!" he insisted. "You can use holy water instead of... whatever the hell that was!"

"No! It's not persuasive enough!" Alice argued stubbornly. "It isn't hurting Dean, I promise! Now let me go!"

Sam glared at her darkly, but complied and took a step back from her.

"She's lying," the demon rasped from the floor. She retched, another spasm racking through Dean's body. "This hurts Dean just as much, if not more than me."

"She can't break a promise," Sam said confidently.

"Yeah right," the demon hissed. "And do you actually have any proof of that?"

"Only that you seemed pretty damn sure that it was true," Sam said. The demon's expression twisted into something Alice had trouble deciphering.

"How could you know that?" Alice asked Sam.

"I guess that possessed mind reading is a two-way street," Sam shrugged.

"You could read her mind while she was possessing you?" Alice demanded.

Sam nodded and Alice's brow knit in confusion. Having been possessed before, she knew that the mind reading was not, in fact, a 'two-way street' as Sam described. Granted, she hadn't been possessed by demon...

The memories were unpleasant and Alice shunned them with a shudder, instead focusing on the present.

"So... do you know why Grinda thought you were so important?" she asked.

"No," Sam said quickly. Too quickly. The look on his face told her that even if he wasn't lying outright, he knew more than he was telling her. Alice decided not to press.

"Does she have the information I want?" she asked instead.

"I don't know," Sam shook his head.

Alice pursed her lips, regarding Sam with suspicion.

"Oh well. I guess I'll have to keep interrogating this bitch until she cracks then," Alice said. "Do you trust me not to hurt Dean? Or are you going to squeeze the life out of me every time I make this thing squeak?"

Sam fixed Alice with a look that told her he was far from happy.

"I don't trust you," he told her. "But I'll let you keep going for now."

"Good enough," Alice said. "Are you ready to talk yet?" she asked the demon.

"Talk? Sure, I'll talk. Just get in here with me and we'll do some talking," the demon grinned.

"Or we could start another round," Alice offered.

"You know Sam, your brother's awfully excitable," the demon said, ignoring Alice completely.

"Shut up," Sam said.

"Last chance," Alice warned.

"And Alice here..." the demon laughed. "Well, let's just say she tickles him in all the right places."

"I said shut up!" Sam yelled.

Alice heard a siren outside and peeked out the curtains. She saw a police car pulling into the hotel parking lot and cursed.

"Are you both into little girls?" the demon rambled on. "I mean, I'll be fair here. I know you were saving Alice's life, right Sam? But you gotta admit, that was some awfully enthusiastic resuscitation."

Sam's hands were clenched into fists. Alice pushed him to the side before he could do anything rash.

"Time's up, cops are here" she said shortly. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus."

The demon was already out almost before the first words left her mouth.

"Someone was eager to leave," Alice mumbled. "Come on, we have to get out of here right now."

She threw the weapons into the duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder while Sam threw Dean's limp body over his. Alice heard a knock on the door, accompanied by a voice.

"Police, open up."

"Shit!" she cursed under her breath. "Just a minute, I'm not dressed!" she yelled as she retreated into the bathroom, gesturing for Sam to follow her. She dived out the window and Sam shoved an unconscious Dean through unceremoniously. He quickly followed, though it was a bit of a tight fit for him. Back in the room, Alice heard the door being kicked in and started jogging around the building. Sam followed her closely.

They made their way to the front of the building, ducking behind cars to avoid being seen. Once they were out of sight of the motel, Alice gestured to a packed parking lot across the street.

"We need a ride out of here," she said.

They picked a car in the midst of the lot and Sam smashed the window in. The alarm went off, but Alice quickly tore open the under-wheel plate, exposing the wiring. She silence the alarm while Sam dropped Dean in the back seat.

"Do you know how to hotwire this thing?" Sam asked through the driver's side window.

"Yeah, give me a minute," Alice said as she searched for the right wires. A moment later, the car shook as it's engine hummed to life.

"You drive," Alice said shortly. She climbed over to the passenger side as Sam got into the car.

"Now what?" Sam asked as they pulled out of the parking lot.

"We get out of town. Preferably the state too," Alice said.

"You're just going to run?" Sam asked.

Alice paused. She knew from his tone he wasn't just talking about the police. If he really had been able to read that demon's mind...

"How much do you know?" she asked softly, afraid of his answer.

"Everything," he replied.

Alice sat silently as she worked through anger, then panic, her emotions finally settling into dread that curled forebodingly in her gut.

"So now what?" she finally asked.

"I don't know. I haven't decided yet," Sam said.

They drove in silence for a while and neither of them spoke until they were on the highway.

"Could you do me a favor?" Alice asked.

"Depends on what it is," Sam said.

"Don't tell your brother," Alice plead.

"Why not?" he asked.

"It's not exactly something you want a lot of people to know," Alice said bitterly.

Sam sighed.

"We'll see... Smith," he said.

Alice let her breath out in an annoyed huff when she heard her last name.

"Don't call me that," she said.

Sam's lips twitched up in amusement, but he didn't reply.

* * *

_**(1):** _ _Demon, in the name of God, I command you speak! Speak!_

_**(2):** _ _Lord, bless this water. To drive away all the demons and the evil of Satan and destroy him. I pray in the name of the one true God._

_**(3):** Speak!_

**_(4):_ ** _Soul to soul, heart to heart, darkness to darkness. My pain is yours._


	6. The Wisps

_Steer your path through the pain that is far more real than you_

_that smashed the cosmic model, that blinded every view._

_And please don't make me go though, though there be a god or not,_

_year by year, month by month, day by day, thought by thought._

_Steer your way, O my heart, though I have no right to ask,_

_to the one who was never, never, equal to the task._

_Who knows he's been convicted, who knows he will be shot._

_Year by year, month by month, day by day, thought by thought._

_**Steer Your Way, Leonard Cohen** _

* * *

The first thing Dean was aware of was the dull pain in his head. Next came a sharp throbbing in his arms. Then the ache that spread over every inch of him, seeming to resonate through even his bones. He groaned as his last memories came back to him. He remembered being possessed and fighting with Sam and Alice. He remembered being trapped. He vaguely remembered that words were traded between the demon and Alice, but when he tried to recall what they were, his headache worsened.

Dean did, however, very clearly remember Alice's apology to him.

_"Dean, I know you're in there. Sorry about this."_

After that, nothing.

Dean sat up, examining his surroundings. He was in the backseat of an unfamiliar car. The smell of disinfectant permeated the air. Dean's eyes wandered to his arms, which were bandaged just below the elbows. Morbid curiosity got the best of him and he gingerly unwrapped one of the bandages. He hissed as the fabric tugged at the wounds beneath, but kept going anyway. As he peeled away the last stretch of cloth, three deep gashes were revealed. He frowned at them.

"Dammit, Sam," he growled. The cuts needed a stitch or two a piece and Sam knew he hated stitches. It would have been easier and more pleasant for everyone involved if Sam had fixed Dean up while he was knocked out.

Dean's seething was interrupted by a knock in the window. He turned to see Sam leaning against the trunk of the car, shirtless. He waved at Dean.

Groaning, Dean opened the car door and stepped out. They were parked at a rest station and it was dark out. As Dean straightened, he spotted Alice standing in front of Sam. She held a cup in one hand and a pencil in the other, and she was... poking Sam with it?

"What's going on?" Dean demanded groggily.

"It lives," Alice joked.

Sam just grimaced as she kept poking him. Dean looked more closely and noticed the needle stuck into the eraser of the pencil and the thick black liquid that filled the cup. Dean's eyebrows shot up as he realized what was going on.

"Are you giving my brother a tattoo?" he asked dubiously.

Dean examined the mark more closely and recognized it as the symbol warding against demonic possession.

"An... anti-possession tattoo," he amended.

"She insisted," Sam said through gritted teeth.

"Don't be a wuss," Alice said without taking her eyes off the tattoo. "I got mine when I was like, three, and I didn't make this big a deal out of it."

"You've got one?" Dean asked.

"Duh. I don't know how you can be a hunter, and not have one," Alice said.

"So where's yours?" Dean asked.

"My navel," she replied.

"Ouch," Dean winced.

"Ouch is right," Alice said. "But it's a good idea to get the tattoo somewhere it's hard to chop or burn it off. You're next and I'm almost done with Sam, so start thinking about where you want yours."

"What? Hold up, I'm not letting you poke me," Dean protested.

"Don't worry, we've got whiskey," Sam said, taking a drink from the bottle resting on the top of the car.

"It's not optional," Alice said firmly. "Without one, you're a liability to say the least."

Dean didn't like it, but he couldn't deny that these tattoos would make their job safer by far.

"You're done," Alice told Sam. "Go be free."

He pulled his shirt back on while Alice turned to Dean.

"Where do you want yours?" she asked.

Dean looked from her, to Sam, and back.

"What the hell. Same place as his," he decided, pulling his shirt off and taking the whiskey from Sam. "Let's get this over with."

"Get comfortable," Alice advised. "This is going to take a while."

Alice removed the needle from the pencil's eraser and tossed it over her shoulder. She poked another one in, while Dean took a swig of the whiskey. Alice retrieved the gold knife from the sheath at her waist and blew on the blade. It immediately burst into flames.

"Whoa! How'd you do that?" Dean demanded, involuntarily flinching away from the sudden heat.

"It's just what the knife does," Sam explained.

"Huh. So there's actually nothing wrong with my lighter," Dean said. Alice rolled her eyes.

"She finally told me what the deal is with the knives," Sam went on.

"Really? Do share," he said. Alice held the needle over the flames until it glowed red.

"Alice's family had a coming of age ritual. At ten, they're expected to forge their own hunting knives," Sam explained.

"Oh. Kind of like how by ten, Dad expected you to know how to make your own sawed off," Dean said.

Sam rolled his eyes. Of course Dean wasn't fazed by the ritual that was hardcore, to say the least.

"Yeah, sure. Anyway, the gold one was her grandmother's, the basalt one was her sister's."

Alice wound thread around the needle, leaving only the tip exposed. She put the cup and needle aside and brought out a sharpie marker, which she used to draw an anti-possession symbol on the left side of Dean's chest. Her hands were cold and he shivered at her touch.

"So, wait..." Dean frowned as he considered the implications of this new information. "That means the silver demon-killing knife..."

"I made it," Alice said briskly, growing impatient with his slow realization.

"No. How?" Dean demanded in disbelief.

"Well, with a lot of help from her sister," Sam provided. "Allison dabbled in witchcraft. A lot. Apparently, it came to a head when Alice, her grandmother and her sister got sent back to 1890."

"Details, Sam," Alice said curtly. "Why. So. Many. Details."

Dean could tell from her tone that it was a sore subject.

"Look, I'm summarizing as much as possible," Sam said in his own defense.

"I get the picture," Dean said, empathy for Alice overriding his curiosity. There would be plenty of opportunities for him to grill Sam for details without Alice present.

"Hold still," she ordered. She dipped the needle in the cup and poked Dean with it.

"OW!"

"Hold still!" she admonished.

Dean took a long drink from the bottle, grimacing as she kept poking him.

"I don't know what I ever did to deserve this," he groaned.

"You tried to choke me to death," she said.

"Right," he said, still not convinced that this was an appropriate reaction.

"Assuming you're going to be doing his as long as you were mine, I'm going to sleep," Sam said. "One of you can drive. The keys are in the cupholder."

He climbed in the backseat and closed the door behind him.

"Why'd he say one of us? I'm obviously going to be the one driving," Dean said.

"Yes you are. I already had a shift," Alice said.

"Sam let you drive?" Dean asked.

"Hm-hmm," she said.

"You didn't think that might be trouble if you got pulled over?" he asked.

"We did get pulled over," Alice said.

"How'd you get out of that one?" Dean asked.

"Pulled out my learners permit," Alice explained. "I got it a while back, but haven't had any adults to watch me with it, so it kind of went unused."

"Okay. So where'd you learn to tattoo?" he asked.

"I didn't," she said.

"What does that mean?

"It means that this is the third tattoo I've ever done in my life," Alice said.

"So... wait, are you going to horribly mess me up and leave me with a weird shapeless ink blob on my chest?" Dean asked in alarm.

"Nope."

"Well I'm glad one of us is sure," Dean muttered.

Alice noticed Dean's unbandaged arm and scowled.

"Did you take that off?" she asked.

"Yeah," Dean said. "While we're on the subject, how the hell did I get these? And why didn't you stitch them up?"

Alice's expression turned apologetic.

"I'm afraid stitching them up wouldn't do any good," she said. "As I've already explained to Sam, they're torxing marks. Torxing is torture done to the soul. And no, it isn't magic, just a feat of mental will."

"Sounds gory," Dean grimaced. "I don't get why you can't stitch them up, though. Don't get me wrong, I hate the needle and thread bit, but you know, the whole healing part is kind of sweet."

Alice bit her lip.

"They're never going to heal," she said, a hint of regretting tinging her words. "I mean, they will, but they'll always come back."

Dean let that sink in for a moment.

"So... this.. torxing. The demon did it to me?" he asked.

"Uh... no," Alice said. "That would have been me."

"You did?" Dean asked incredulously. "Alice, what the hell?!"

"Look, I was really trying to torture the demon," Alice said defensively. "You were just kind of... in the way."

Dean's frown deepened.

"Why were you torturing the bastard instead of just getting him out of me?!" Dean demanded.

"He... had information," Alice shrugged.

"What kind of information?" Dean pressed.

"Information about you and your brother, okay?"

"What?!" Dean exclaimed in disbelief. "What did you want to know about me and Sam that I couldn't tell you?"

"I wanted to know why Grinda thought you were too important to kill, alright?" Alice snapped. "I thought you probably didn't know and even if you did, that you probably wouldn't tell me. You know, Sam was in the room with me while I was interrogating that demon and he didn't offer up any answers to my questions."

Dean was about to tell her that the reason Sam couldn't answer her questions was that he didn't have the answers. He considered telling Alice what he knew, but quickly stopped himself. Did he really want to tell Alice what his Dad had told him about Sam? About the demon blood that ran through his brother's veins? What would Alice do with that information? She clearly wasn't the most stable or predictable person. She shot Dean minutes after meeting him and, apparently, tortured him with some kind of crazy mind trick. She had repeatedly demonstrated blatant disregard for Sam and Dean's lives and even her own, now that Dean thought about it.

He decided that if Alice knew what Sam was, she was just as likely to kill him without hesitation as she was to keep him alive because she needed someone to kill Ruby for her.

They stood in silence for a while. Only a few cars drove past and Dean wondered where they were. Alice spoke before he could ask though.

"When you were possessed, could you read that demon's mind?" she asked abruptly.

"Uh, no. Why?" Dean asked.

"Sam says that he could. I've never heard of a person who was possessed reading the mind of the demon possessing them," she said.

"Well I wouldn't know anything about it," Dean said carefully.

The silence between them became thick with tension as Alice studied his expression and he avoided her eyes as much as possible. Awkward as the atmosphere had become, there was one more question that nagged Dean incessantly. Nearly an hour passed before he decided to give it voice.

"There's something I don't get."

"Really? Seems to me like there's a lot you don't get," Alice rolled her eyes.

"I'm serious."

"Touchy much?" she said at his tone.

"You'd be touchy too in my place," Dean said pointedly, nodding to his half-finished tattoo.

"Fair enough. What is it you don't get?"

"How come you never made more knives?" he asked.

Alice pursed her lips so tightly they almost disappeared.

"I'm bad at it," she admitted. "Plus I think it's stupid... why are you gonna waste your time forging your own damn knife when you can drop fifty bucks and get something just as good or better? You know?"

"Really? 'Cause if you know somewhere I can buy a demon-killing knife for fifty bucks, you'd better share the address," Dean scoffed.

"The demon-killing mojo is all in the spellwork," Alice explained. "You can work it on any knife. Nothing special needed."

"So why don't you?" Dean pressed.

Alice poked him especially hard and he swallowed a grunt of pain. Judging from her expression, he was guessing she'd hurt him on purpose.

"It's a nasty spell," Alice finally replied. "Anyway, I'm not a witch. Allison cast the spell last time. I doubt I could do it on my own."

This time, Dean let the silence sit unbroken. Alice looked exhausted from sharing so much and he understood how she felt. He had enough luggage of his own to know that being forced to unpack it was a seriously unpleasant experience. He wondered how Sam had gotten her to open up to him about the knives in the first place, but stowed the question away to be asked another time.

* * *

They didn't stop driving until they crossed the state line from Arizona into New Mexico. They ditched their car just outside the city of Summit and set off on foot. According to Alice, they were heading for a mailbox.

"What's here that's so important again?" Sam asked as they walked through the bright desert streets.

"Work," Alice replied. "Summit is a haunting hotspot. It's seen a lot of violent deaths throughout the years and a lot of the spirits stick around. I swing by when I'm broke and need to make some quick money."

Dean frowned as Alice's words sunk in.

"Are you saying that you charge people money to get rid of ghosts?" Dean asked sharply.

Alice heard the disapproval in his tone, and turned to face him with her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, that's exactly what I do," she said.

"Isn't that a little..." Dean trailed off, trying to find the right words. "I mean, shouldn't you just..."

Sam stepped in on Dean's side.

"Look, Alice, hauntings are pretty serious," he said. "Is it really right to take advantage of people's desperation like that?"

Alice was silent for a long moment, which surprised Dean. Knowing Alice, he had expected her to come back immediately with a snarky comment on how he and Sam were too moralistic.

"What do you want me to say?" she finally shrugged. "Hunting is the only skill I have to sell. Unless you think I should get into prostitution."

The earnesty of her tone took both Sam and Dean off guard. Alice rarely said anything without a sarcastic edge.

"Think we should teach her about credit card fraud?" Dean asked Sam under his breath after Alice turned away from them.

"Why, because that's such an honest way to make a living?" Sam snorted.

"Well it's better than making people pay you to fix their problems with the supernatural," Dean pointed out.

"That's a matter of opinion," Sam said contrarily.

"Here we are," Alice announced, interrupting their whispering. She stopped at a rickety gate, which opened to a path leading to a run-down house.

"What's here?" Dean asked skeptically.

"My mail," Alice replied.

She led the way up the creaky steps, startling a homeless man who was sleeping under a bench on the porch.

"Don't mind us," Alice said.

The man settled back down, but still watched Alice warily as she wiped the dust from a metal mail box beside the board-covered door. She lifted the lid and her face fell.

"Damn!" she cursed, letting the lid fall back with a clang. "Nothing!"

"What were you expecting to find?" Sam asked.

"It's _supposed_ to be common knowledge around here that if you think you're being haunted, you write down your problems and drop the note here," Alice said, gesturing angrily to the empty box.

Dean shot Sam a significant glance.

"Wow, Sam," he said loudly. "It sure would be nice if she had some backup way to earn money."

Sam rolled his eyes at Dean, while Alice's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Why do I feel out of the loop right now?" she asked.

"Dean wants to teach you-"

"Hey, are you that paranormal investigator chick?" the homeless man interrupted Sam, crawling out from under the bench.

Alice groaned internally at the embarrassing misconception of what she did, but nodded, never the less.

"Yeah, that's me," she said drily.

"Some kid came around here a day or two ago trying to drop off a letter for you," the homeless man said as he stood. "'Fraid I may have scared her off though."

"Do you know who she is by any chance?" Alice asked.

"Not really, but I've seen her around. She goes to school down the road," the man answered.

"Would you recognize her if you saw her again?"

"Yeah."

Alice grinned. "When does school let out around here?"

"'Round three."

"What's your name?" Alice asked.

"Oscar," replied the homeless man.

Alice turned to Dean. "Do you have any cash on you?" she asked.

"I've got..." Dean dug through his pockets and came up with a wrinkled bill. "Ten bucks."

Alice snatched the money from him and offered it to the homeless man.

"Oscar, can you come with us and point this kid out?" she asked.

"Hell yeah!" Oscar said enthusiastically. He grabbed the money and started off down the street. "Come on, it's like, two thirty! We've gotta book it!"

Sam, Dean and Alice let Oscar lead the way.

"Uh, Alice?" Dean asked. "How much do you usually charge people when you hunt for them?"

"Depends," Alice shrugged. "I mean, every job's different. I've never gone lower than two hundred bucks though."

Dean whistled.

"You know," he told Sam, "if you can get past the whole morally ambiguous part of making people pay you to get rid of ghosts..."

"This isn't going to start being a thing we do, Dean," Sam said firmly.

Dean pouted, but didn't protest.

"While we're on this subject, what were you saying about backup ways to make money?" Alice asked curiously.

Dean glanced ahead, making sure that Oscar was still out of earshot.

"Well... when we need some quick cash-"

"You mean when _you_ need quick cash," Sam corrected him.

"Right," Dean said sarcastically. "Goody two shoes here has the straightest halo around. Anyway, when times get tight for me, I send in phony credit card applications."

"Credit card fraud?" Alice asked, amused. "You actually know how to make that work?"

"Yeah, well, it's not as risky when you move around all the time," Dean said.

"Not _as_ risky," Sam stressed. "It's still easy to get caught if you slip up. Not to mention that you're tarnishing _someone's_ name."

"Please, they have ways of clearing that stuff up," Dean said blithely

"Hmm," Alice hummed thoughtfully. "So that's it? You live off of fraudulent credit cards?"

"Well... that and the hustling," Dean admitted.

"I hustle idiots at darts sometimes," Alice said, with a grin that made Dean feel like he was missing out on a joke. "What's your game?"

"Pool," Dean replied. "Sam's got a killer break, even if he still can't cross-shoot for shit."

"Hey," Sam protested.

"I suck at pool," Alice grimaced. "Allison was great at it though."

Dean bit his lip awkwardly at the mention of Alice's sister, preparing for the conversation to grow heavy and uncomfortable. Alice, however, smiled absently.

"She always kicked my ass when we played together."

Sam took advantage of Alice's apparent openness.

"Were you two close?" he ventured, testing the ice.

Alice snapped shut like an oyster.

"What are you, my diary?" she snarked.

Ahead of them, Oscar beckoned.

"It's just around the corner," he called back.

Alice jogged ahead to meet him, while Sam and Dean followed a few paces behind. They caught up to find Alice gazing at the school with a look of distaste.

"Did you guys go through school?" she asked.

"Why, are you trying to be our diary?" Sam shot back.

"Touche," Alice allowed.

Dean snorted, shouldering Sam to the side and earning a glare for his trouble.

"Yeah, we went through school," Dean told her.

"My condolences," Alice groaned.

"Bad memories?" Dean pressed.

Alice shrugged.

"My grandmother taught us at home for the most part," Alice said. "I tried school for one week... it didn't really agree with me."

"I feel you," Dean nodded.

Beside him, Sam chuckled quietly.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Nothing," Sam said. "I just didn't think school was that bad. In fact, I kinda liked it sometimes."

"Yeah, well... you're a weirdo," Dean said pointedly.

"I never finished school," Oscar put in wistfully.

All three hunters simultaneously turned to look at him and he shifted uncomfortably under their combined gazes.

"Hey, uh... kids!" Oscar said nervously, pointing to the school's entrance. Sure enough, a wave of teenagers poured from the building seconds later, like a chattering, hooting tsunami.

"Do you see the girl who was looking for me?" Alice asked Oscar.

"Uh..."

Oscar craned his neck, searching the crowd. Minutes passed and Alice was about to ask again, when Oscar pointed.

"That's her," he said. "There, blonde hair with the purple shirt."

"Blue backpack?" Alice asked.

"That's her."

"Thanks Oscar," Alice said as she passed him.

"Sure," he said, disappearing around the corner.

Sam and Dean started to follow Alice, but she stopped them.

"Maybe I'd better talk to her alone," she suggested, nodding in the direction of a crossing guard who was watching them with narrowed eyes.

"Fine," Sam agreed. "We'll wait here."

They watched as Alice trotted up to the girl, tapping her on the shoulder to get her attention. The girl jumped as she turned, and Sam could see the shadows under her eyes from where he stood. He couldn't hear what was said between Alice and the girl, but it felt like they were talking forever.

"What are they gabbing about for so long?" Dean complained, apparently thinking the same thing as Sam.

"Beats me," Sam said, glancing at his watch. "They've actually only been talking for five minutes."

"Hmmf," Dean grunted in reply.

A few more minutes passed, before Alice waved Sam and Dean over. They crossed the street, hyper-aware of the crossing guard watching them.

"You know, she's starting to freak me out a little," Dean muttered to Sam, risking a glance in the crossing guard's direction.

"Don't look at her, pretend she's not there," Sam suggested, fixing his eyes on Alice and the other girl.

"Sam, Dean!" Alice called, grinning. "We've got a case."

"Who are these guys?" the girl asked nervously.

"These are my uncles," Alice replied easily. "Uncle Sam, Uncle Dean, meet Theresa Wisp."

"It's uh, it's nice meeting you," Theresa said.

"Anyway, poor Theresa here has been noticing odd happenings around her household as of late," Alice told the Winchesters. "Weird noises at night, most notably whispers in empty rooms, strange flashes of light, cold spots, and general misbehavior from anything running on electricity in the home."

"Misbehavior?!" Theresa demanded. "The vacuum cleaner tried to kill me! My Mom is talking about moving because of all the weird stuff that keeps happening and my Dad insists that NOTHING is happening! They won't stop fighting about it, and last night Mom said she was leaving with me, whether he decided to come or not! If this doesn't stop soon, I'm going to have to leave all my friends behind, switch schools, lose my boyfr-"

She choked on her words, her eyes glistening with tears.

"Shh," Alice soothed. "We can help you. First, we'll need to speak with your parents.

Theresa took a deep breath, nodding as she regained her composure.

"Sure. I don't live far, just down the street on Appling."

"Lead the way," Alice said.

As soon as Theresa started walking, Alice turned to Sam and Dean and gave them two thumbs up, accompanied by a massive grin. They both frowned, but neither said anything to curb Alice's callous enthusiasm.

* * *

"I still don't understand why you have to dismantle my walkman," Theresa said unhappily. She was with Sam and Dean in the living room. Dean sat on the couch, messing with the device, while Sam examined a collection of Japanese masks that dominated the wall above the fireplace. Alice and Theresa's mother sat at the dining room table, within sight, but out of earshot.

"Yeah, well I don't understand why you even have one in the first place," Dean said absently as he carefully rewired the walkman. "I mean, this is 1992, right? Don't they at least have CD walkmans yet?"

"Yeah, but I like the cassette ones," Theresa replied. "They're neat."

"Hmm. Whatever floats your boat, I guess," Dean said as he worked. They needed an EMF meter, a tool which Alice said she hadn't been able to get her hands on since 2004, before her trickster troubles. Dean's claim that he could make a working EMF meter out of a walkman was met with raised eyebrows from Alice, but Sam backed Dean, so here he was.

As Sam examined the masks, he took note of an empty hook on the end of the middle row.

"Was there a mask here?" Sam asked Theresa, pointing to the empty space.

Theresa bit her lip and nodded.

"Yeah, but it... broke a few days ago," she said hesitantly.

"Like ghostly-breaking broke?" Dean asked.

"No... it..." Theresa struggled to get the words out. "One of Mom and Dad's arguments got a little... heated."

She shrugged, in spite of the pain etched into her features.

"Hey," Sam said, approaching her.

She looked up at him as he placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

"We're gonna fix this for you," he assured her.

She managed a tight smile in response.

"Theresa!" her mother called.

She hurried off, brushing past Alice on her way into the dining room.

"So, what's the deal?" Sam asked.

"We're in business," Alice said. "We have Ms. Wisp's permission to stay the night."

"So why don't you look happy?" Sam asked.

"Maybe because I've never had so much trouble convincing someone to let me spend the night in their house before," Alice said, somewhat grouchily. "I'm fairly sure it's your fault too."

"Well, makes sense," Sam said. "I mean, I'm sure people aren't really concerned about a fourteen year old girl killing them in their sleep or robbing them. A fourteen year old girl and two middle-aged guys though..."

"I know, it's a stellar recipe for trust," Alice said sarcastically. She sighed and moved on. "Dean, what's up with the EMF walkman?"

"Dude, I started working on it five minutes ago," he said defensively. "You've gotta give me some time to do my thing here."

"Fine," Alice said. "You keep working on that. I'm going to look around the house. Sam, you help Dean."

She started to leave, but turned back to them at the last minute.

"And try not to do anything that'll give them any more reason not to trust us," she begged.


	7. Polytimes

The Wisp case was shaping up to be pretty straightforward. The home had seen tragady, and very recently. Theresa's older brother, Max, had died two months earlier of a drug overdose. He was already dead when Carol Wisp, the mother, found him on the living room couch. There was, of course, the slight complication that Max had been cremated. Before they burned his possessions, or sanctified his ashes, however, the hunters opted to try talking the spirit into moving on.

"As a last resort, we could summon a reaper," Alice had suggested. "But I would have to skedaddle and leave that part to you guys."

"Wait, that's a thing you can do?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Alice said, as though it should been obvious.

"Why would you have to leave?" Sam asked.

Alice sighed, wondering how much she should tell them.

"I'm... on shaky ground with Death," she finally allowed, holding her hand flat and wobbling it from side to side in demonstration.

"Care to elaborate on that, or is it another secret?" Dean asked with a frown.

"Eh... it's complicated, and I don't feel like getting into it right now," Alice said. "It is kind of a cool story though. Maybe I'll tell you some other time."

Shortly thereafter, Dean finished the EMF meter. They determined that there were no were no unusual electromagnetic frequencies present in the home, but this told them very little, except that they were dealing with a weak spirit. It was a good bet that the EMF meter wouldn't pick up anything unusual until the spirit was active. From Theresa's accounts, this was around 9:00 at night, which lined up pretty closely with Max's estimated time of death. This left Sam, Dean and Alice with a good nine hours to kill. They ended up playing cards to pass the time.

"Ha! I win," Dean declared, laying down a flush which trumped Alice's pocket fives and Sam's straight.

"Damn," Alice cursed. So far, she had not won a single hand.

"Shoot," Sam instructed Dean.

"Favorite band," Dean demanded without hesitation.

Alice rolled her eyes. Since they had twenty cents between the three of them, Sam had suggested that they gamble with information. Alice had almost walked away from the game, but the Winchesters assured her all questions would be trivial.

"The rolling stones," Sam replied.

"Wow, that is a significantly less douchey answer than I was expecting," Dean said. "Alice?"

"Aerosmith," Alice answered easily. She had been rather tense for the first few questions, even though the most invasive of them came when Sam asked what her favorite color was. Not exactly hard interrogation material, but Alice kept expecting them to ask a serious question in an attempt to trap her.

As the game went on, however, and the questions stayed silly, Alice gradually relaxed.

"Sweet," Dean commented. "Is it pushing my luck here to ask your favorite track?"

"Just push play," Alice replied. "By the way, do you have any idea what that comes out?"

"Uh..." Dean thought for a minute. "Not 'til sometime in the 2000's. 2002, maybe?"

"Bluh!" Alice grimaced. "Oh well. 'Get a grip' is coming out sometime next year I think, so at least that's not too far off."

While Dean and Alice spoke, Sam began discreetly gathering up the cards. Dean quickly caught onto what he was doing.

"Hey!" he yelled, swatting Sam's hands away from the cards. "You're still not allowed to deal."

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose in vexation.

"Dean, how many times do I have tell you, I don't know any card tricks?" he demanded.

"You can tell me that as many times as you want," Dean said stubbornly as he shuffled. "There's no way I'm letting Mr. Magician Junior deal."

Alice shot Sam a questioning glance, cocking one eyebrow. Sam sighed in frustration.

"I was into magic tricks for a few months when I was a kid," he explained. "Since then, Dean hasn't let me deal when we play cards. It's been like, ten years, but he's still convinced that I'm going to fix the games if he lets me get too close to the cards."

"That's horrible," Alice said. Her tone was solemn, but it was obvious that she was trying not to laugh.

"It's a valid concern," Dean insisted.

Before Dean could dole out the cards, someone coughed loudly from the doorway. The three hunters turned to see a man watching them. He was short, thin, and balding. The hair that remained on his sweat-shined head was black streaked with grey. He was dressed in a business suit, and had a rather timid look about him.

"Um, hello," the man said uncertainly.

"Mr. Roman Wisp?" Sam asked, standing.

"That's me," Mr. Wisp replied. "Are you friends of Carol's?"

"Not exactly," Sam replied. "We're working with your wife and daughter to determine what's been causing the disturbances in your home."

Mr. Wisp stiffened visibly, but quickly hid his reaction behind a casual smile.

"Look, I don't know what they told you," Mr. Wisp began, "But there are no 'disturbances'. My wife and daughter have been on edge lately is all."

"Since your son's death?" Alice piped up.

"It took a toll on all of us," Mr. Wisp told her.

"We're very sorry for your loss," Sam said genuinely.

"I'm sure," Mr. Wisp said bitingly.

Dean stood, clearing his throat.

"Look, Mr. Wisp, can I be frank with you?" he asked.

"Go ahead."

"Honestly, I don't think there's anything going on here either," Dean lied. "You know how women can get sometimes. A few bumps in the night, and they fly off into fantasy land."

"Careful, mister," Wisp warned.

Dean held up his hands placatingly.

"I'm just saying, sometimes they need a little... reassurance," Dean went on. "You know, an expert voice telling them that nothing's really going on."

"Who are you people?" Mr. Wisp demanded.

"Specialists," Alice answered.

"What kind of specialists?" he pressed.

"We specialize in... disproving paranormal phenomenon," Sam lied quickly.

Mr. Wisp relaxed minutely at his words.

"So... you're going to prove that nothing weird is going on around here?" he asked.

"Exactly," Dean confirmed.

Mr. Wisp considered that for a moment, though he still eyed Sam, Dean and Alice rather shrewdly.

"Why would my wife reach out to you?" he asked suspiciously. "I've been trying to convince her that nothing's going on for a month now, with no luck. Why would she seek out someone else to tell her the same thing?"

"Actually, your daughter reached out to us," Alice said. It wasn't even really a lie. "She's terrified that your family is going to split up over this."

"Your wife thinks we're ghost hunters," Sam added. "She thinks we're here to banish an evil spirit."

"Of course, all we'll actually do is poke around, and tell her there's nothing to banish," Dean put in.

Mr. Wisp looked more satisfied with every word they said.

"And, uh... how much are your services going to cost us?" he asked, though no trace of hostility remained in his tone or posture.

Alice opened her mouth to answer, but Sam cut her off.

"We run a charitable operation," he said. "When we're done, you can decide to give us a donation if you feel that we've helped your family."

At that, Mr. Wisp broke out grinning.

"Great!" he said enthusiastically. "In that case, carry on! If you'll excuse me, I need to change for dinner."

He brushed past them, and heading for the hallway leading out of the room. As he walked past the EMF meter, it beeped softly. The sound went unnoticed by the hunters. As soon as Mr. Wisp was out sight, Alice fixed Sam with a death glare.

"Why did you tell him we're a charity?!" she hissed.

"Because if we told him anything else, he would have kicked us out," Sam shot back.

"So?! We could have found another case!" Alice fumed.

"And what, leave these people to deal with this ghost on their own?" Sam demanded.

"Damn right!" Alice said furiously. "At least until they get desperate enough to come find us again! And you know what?! After that, we can charge them twice as much, and they won't blink!"

"No, _WE_ don't do that!" Sam said angrily. " _WE_ help people! We don't take advantage of them!"

"Yeah, and _YOU_ have to run credit card scams to keep from starving!" Alice retorted. She turned to Dean for support. "A little help here with your mule-headed brother?"

Dean frowned, taken a bit aback by the request.

"Actually, I'm with mr. Mulehead on this one," he said. "As sweet as I have to admit this whole scam sounds, it's also wrong. There's too much room for someone to get hurt."

"It's not a scam!" Alice insisted, a hint of indignance creeping into her tone. "It's called _free fucking trade_! It's been around forever - you give me, I give you."

"That's beside the point!" Sam said. "We're not going to ask for three hundred dollars to help someone, and then walk away and leave them to handle a restless spirit on their own when they don't want to pay! If you want the money so bad, then go ahead and find another case. But me and Dean are staying here to finish this one."

Dean expected Alice to shout 'Fine!' and storm out in a huff. Instead, she surprised him by dropping her gaze, and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Fine," she grumbled. "You win, mulehead. We'll stick this one out."

She walked away, leaving Sam with a look of surprise that matched Dean's.

"That was... unexpected," Sam said quietly.

"Guess you got through to her," Dean shrugged.

"Guess so," Sam said.

* * *

After the argument, Alice disappeared for a while. Sam and Dean played war, and were invited to eat dinner with the remnants of the Wisp family. They had prepared for a barrage of questions about what they were going to do, but for the most part, the Wisps were tense and silent. Mr. Wisp was the cheeriest of the bunch, though he was trying and failing to hide it from Ms. Wisp.

After the meal, Sam was recruited for dish duty, and Dean barely managed to escape the cleanup by ducking into the bathroom. He took his time, but there was still work to be done when he got out, so he plopped down on the couch, took the back off the walkman-EMF meter, and pretended to fiddle with the wiring.

"... kind of you, but I couldn't."

Dean heard Alice's voice, and looked up in time to see her and Mr. Wisp walk into the living room.

"Well, suit yourself," Mr. Wisp said. He spotted Dean, and frowned slightly.

"Is that Theresa's walkman?" he questioned.

"Yeah, she, uh... wanted me to take a look at it," Dean explained quickly. "Said it's been acting up."

"Huh."

Mr. Wisp leaned in closer to examine the modifications Dean had made. As soon as he got within a foot of the little device, it lit up, and squealed.

Alice's eyebrows rose inquisitively, and she shot Dean a significant look. Mr. Wisp just looked puzzled by the EMF meter.

"Yeah, see, um... it's not supposed to do that," Dean lied.

Mr. Wisp shrugged.

"Whatever you say. I'll admit that I'm not the most technically proficient person out there," he said good-humoredly. "I'll just get out of your hair."

On his way out of the room, Mr. Wisp grabbed a tall metal vase from above the fireplace. Dean and Alice watched him go.

"That was weird," Alice said when he was gone.

"What, the EMF meter going off, or Wisp abducting the flowerpot?" Dean asked.

"Pff, the flowerpot thing isn't weird," Alice said. "Lots of people like to sleep with their valuables when there are strangers in the house."

"I don't know, that thing didn't look very valuable," Dean joked.

"Don't you think you're getting a bit sidetracked?" Alice asked. "He tripped the EMF meter. What does that even mean?"

Dean shrugged.

"Could have been any number of things. Maybe it wasn't him at all. Maybe there was just a spike in the EMF in this room."

"At that exact moment?" Alice asked dubiously. "I say we scan him again."

"And I say that sounds like a good way to raise his hackles. If we spook this guy, things are only going to get harder," Dean pointed out.

Alice was about to respond, but she was interrupted by a low, continuous beep from the EMF meter. Dean held the device up to look it over, and the beep grew louder.

"Or this piece of shit could be broken," Dean observed, shaking the meter.

"Yeah, that, or it was never working to start with," Alice snorted.

"Could be that too, I guess," Dean admitted, examining the wires in earnest now. His investigation was interrupted by a call from the kitchen.

"Dean! Check this out," Sam yelled.

Dean and Alice ran into the kitchen to see the microwave running.

"Dude, we just ate and you're already going after the leftovers?" Dean asked incredulously.

In response, Sam held up the unplugged microwave cord.

"Alice! Alice!"

Theresa raced into the kitchen, panting. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she was shaking.

"Th-the whispers," Theresa gasped. "I was in my room and I-I heard them from down the hall and- and-"

"Where were they coming from?" Alice asked quickly.

"My D-dad's study, I think!"

"Upstairs, let's go," Alice said shortly. "Theresa, find your Mom and get out of the house."

Theresa nodded and raced off again.

Alice, Sam and Dean hurried up the stairs as quietly as possible, grabbing salt on their way through the living room. As they ascended, the EMF meter's whine grew louder, and more obnoxious. Dean covered the speaker with his hand, muffling the noise significantly.

With the EMF's continuous beeping gone, the whispers became audible. They were soft, soothing, and distinctly feminine. Alice frowned as she listened.

"That's greek," she said softly.

"You speak greek?" Dean asked as they edged down the hall.

"Not really," Alice admitted. "I was supposed to learn, but I never really got into it."

"Do you know enough to tell what's being said?" Sam asked.

Alice shook her head.

"What gets me," she wondered aloud, "is why the ghost of Max Wisp would be whispering in greek."

"Yeah, not to mention that he sounds like a chick," Dean muttered.

They approached the door to Mr. Wisp's study, and paused.

"Don't forget, we're trying the talking route first," Sam reminded Alice and his brother. "Let's not start shooting the place up or flinging salt around unless it's obvious that he's not going to move on peacefully."

"Maybe only one of us should go in at first," Dean suggested. "So we don't spook him."

"Alright," Sam agreed. "Alice?"

"Why? You scared?" Alice snarked.

"No, but Max might be," Sam shot back.

"Relax Winchester," Alice said, creeping past them to the door. She tried the handle to find it was locked.

"I'm just playing," she said as she bent down to pick the lock.

"Play when we're done working," Sam admonished.

"Right," Alice said. The lock was cheap, and clicked open easily. Alice took a breath, and turned the handle.

The scene inside took her completely by surprise.

Mr. Wisp sat at his desk, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. Behind him stood a woman with irridescent, algae colored hair, blue lips and eyes, and white fingernails. Her skin was deathly pale, with the slightest hint of a blue tinge to it. She wore a loose, translucent robe that flowed and billowed around her like indigo smoke when she moved. Through the thin material, Alice could make out the intricate white tattoos that danced across her skin, glowing lightly.

The woman was kneading Mr. Wisp's shoulders gently, and whispering in his ear. Within the confines of the room, her soft tone resonated, almost creating an echo effect without the woman ever raising her voice. The sound made Alice a little drowsy, and she blinked rapidly, gripping the door frame to keep herself from passing out on the spot.

Seconds after Alice opened the door, the scene froze. The woman stopped whispering, and her head snapped around with unnatural speed to fix Alice with a startled gaze. Alice met her icy blue eyes, and held them for a long second.

"Sam, Dean," Alice said cautiously, hardly daring to move her lips.

"What's going on in there?" Dean whispered harshly.

"Beats the hell out of me," Alice replied without taking her eyes off the woman.

"Should we come in?" Sam asked quietly.

"I don't know," Alice said. "Hold off for a minute."

The woman backed away from Mr. Wisp, now looking a bit scared.

"Eímai tou!" she said. Though no longer a whisper, her voice was still soft. Despite this, there was something piercing about her tone.

"What are you?" Alice asked, struggling to recall her grandmother's Greek lessons.

"Eímai tou!" the woman repeated. "Den boreís na me párei . Eímai tou!"

"Ti sas?" Alice asked uncertainly. She knew that at best it was broken, incorrect greek, but it was better than nothing.

"Eímai tou," the woman said again. She looked at something behind Alice, and the shadow of fear on her face turned to distress.

"What the hell?" Alice heard Dean say behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw him peeking into the room.

"Dean, get back!" Sam hissed.

"Sam, there's some creepy chick in here," Dean protested.

Alice glanced back at the woman just in time to see her darting back toward Mr. Wisp, who was stirring in his seat. Alice's hand instinctively went to her waist, but before she even touched the knife sheathed there, the woman dissolved into a swirling blue, green, white and indigo cloud. As Alice watched, the colorful mist snaked it's way past Mr. Wisp, and into a metal vase sitting on his desk. Alice immediately recognized it as the 'flowerpot' that Mr. Wisp had taken from the mantle no more than ten minutes earlier.

As the last of the vapour disappeared into the vase, Mr. Wisp woke fully. His eyes snapped wide open when he noticed Alice.

"Hey!" he cried in alarm. "What are you doing up here?"

"What was that thing?" Dean interrupted, barging into the room. Sam followed closely, though much more quietly. "Alice?"

"I don't know," she snapped. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Well what was it doing?" Dean demanded.

"I can't be sure," Alice started, glaring at Mr. Wisp with her arms crossed over her chest. "But it looked an awful lot like she was giving this mook a massage."

"Huh?" Sam said.

"Come again?" Dean requested dubiously.

"When I first came in, he was passed out and she was giving him a massage," Alice restated, pointing at Mr. Wisp.

"Where did this woman go?" Sam asked, looking around quickly.

"She turned into mist and went in the flowerpot," Alice said, turning her finger on the vase.

Sam strode over to the desk to examine the vase, but Mr. Wisp grabbed it before he could.

"I want you out of my house, now," Mr. Wisp snapped.

"It's too late for that," Alice said. Behind her, Dean closed the door, something that did not go unnoticed by Mr. Wisp.

"What do you want?" he demanded, a hint of nervousness creeping into his voice. "What do you _really_ want?"

"We want everything you know about that flowerpot and the spooky broad shacked up inside it," Dean said.

Alice rolled her eyes. Dean's tone told her that he was aiming for threatening, but the words that accomanied his growling demand were so ridiculous that the effect was cancelled out entirely.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Mr. Wisp stammered.

"Yeah, sure," Dean snarked.

"Look, we're just trying to help," Sam said. "Just tell us what's going on."

"Nothing's going on!" Mr. Wisp insisted.

"In that case, we should probably just take the vase," Alice suggested loudly, eyeing Dean significantly. "Whether flowerpot lady is dangerous or not, she probably won't be able to hurt anyone if we melt the vase down while she's inside."

Dean caught on quickly.

"Yeah, makes sense," he agreed. "We can take it to, uh... Jerry's forge. He owes me a favor."

"Wait, what?" Mr. Wisp demanded in alarm.

"Yeah, it's kind of our job to make sure dangerous paranormal stuff stays out of circulation," Alice continued, no longer even really lying. Beside her, Dean dug through his pockets. She wondered what he was doing, until a second later he pulled out a badge and handed it to Mr. Wisp.

"Holy mother of hell," Mr. Wisp said, holding the badge up for examination with one hand while he clutched the vase with the other. "You're friggin' FBI?"

Alice fought to make sure that her eyebrows remained stationary. If she looked surprised at this junction, it could blow the whole story. She did, however, make a mental note to ask Dean how the hell he had gotten his hands on an FBI badge.

"That's right," Dean said seriously, winking at Alice. "So you see, we have the authority to take that flowerpot off you if we think it's dangerous."

Mr. Wisp frowned in Alice's direction as he handed the badge back to Dean.

"What is it, take your niece to work day?" he asked skeptically.

"She's a new recruit," Sam provided.

"I didn't know you guys started in on them so early," Mr. Wisp said, still suspicious.

"Yeah, well the monster hunting units have special requirements," Alice said. "Now hand over the flowerpot."

Mr. Wisp's expression turned pained.

"Or," Sam offered loudly. "You could tell us what it is, so we can decide if it's actually dangerous."

"And if it isn't?" Mr. Wisp asked.

"We'll see," Dean said.

Mr. Wisp swallowed hard, and finally nodded reluctantly.

"Fine. I'll tell you what I know," he said, sitting. He didn't let go of the vase for a second.

"First of all, Polýtimes isn't dangerous," Mr. Wisp started.

"Polýtimes?" Dean asked.

"Polýtimes Paidí," he explained. "That's her name. The genie."

"A genie," Sam repeated, his tone colored with skepticism.

"Well, she does live in a bottle... or, flowerpot, whatever," Dean pointed out.

"Does she grant wishes?" Sam asked, sounding genuinely curious.

Alice considered facepalming, but decided against it. After all, Genies were a more obscure, rare occurrence. She couldn't really fault the Winchesters for not knowing what they were.

"Not exactly," Mr. Wisp said. "She... makes me dream."

"Huh?" Dean asked.

"I... tell her what I want, and she puts me to sleep. I dream about it, and while I'm dreaming... it all feels real," Mr. Wisp said hurriedly.

"Where did you get flowerpot girl?" Dean inquired.

"Polýtimes," Mr. Wisp corrected him. "The vase has been in my family for generations. My father passed away a few years ago, cancer. Before the end, he told me what the vase was. I-I didn't really believe him for a long time. I mean, he was in a lot of pain, and I assumed that he just wasn't in his right mind. But after Max-"

Mr. Wisp cut off, staring at the vase distantly.

"I couldn't cope," he finally said. "I needed..."

He trailed off, struggling to find the right words.

"We've heard enough," Alice said. "You stay here, Wisp. My uncles and I need to talk."

She moved toward the door, motioning for Sam and Dean to follow.

"This stinks," Alice said after she closed to study door.

"Why?" Dean asked. "Are these things dangerous?"

"About as dangerous as unicorns made out of cotten candy," Alice said drily.

Sam and Dean exchanged a confused glance, and Alice sighed.

"Genies are half-breed monsters," she explained. "They're what happens when a Djinn and a Siren get freaky with each other."

"That's a thing that can happen?" Dean asked incredulously.

"Yep," Alice confirmed. "Genies are actually the bright side of the monster interbreeding scene, but let's not get into that."

"I don't get it," Sam said. "Djinn and Sirens are both really nasty."

"Yeah, why would their love child be a cotten candy unicorn?" Dean asked.

"What do I look like, a monster evolution theorist?" Alice demanded. "Two negatives make a positive maybe? I don't know."

"Okay, that's fine," Sam said. "But what's the deal with the EMF? The cold spots? Electrical appliances going haywire? This is all ghost stuff."

"Genies produce strong EMF fields when they're doing their thing," Alice explained. "Strong enough to mess with the electricity, cause cold spots and other stuff that can look like a ghost at first."

"Wow," Dean said. "This Wisp guy is a douche."

"For what, seeking out comfort after his son's death?" Sam asked dubiously.

"No, for trying to convince his wife and daughter that they're crazy when he knows damn well what's going on," Dean said. He frowned. "He's also pretty dumb, I guess. What would possess him to pull out flowerpot girl while he knew we were here?"

"Could be that he didn't know about the side effects of the genie's powers," Alice suggested. "If he's checked out in genie lala land while she does her thing, he might really think Theresa and Carol are just out of sorts since Max's death."

"Look, whatever's up with Wisp, we still have the question of what we're going to do about this thing," Sam said pointedly.

"Why do we have to do anything?" Dean asked. "Why not just let Wisp keep his cotton candy unicorn?"

"Well what if the thing decides to take after one of it's parents?" Sam asked. "It's not out of the question."

"Actually, it kind of is," Alice argued. "Genies don't come in bottles naturally, you know. They have to be bound into them. Once they are, they're passed down through families. Part of the binding is that they're completely controlled by whoever possesses them."

"There's still room for this thing to turn sour," Sam said arbitrarily. "What if Wisp decides that his genie is wasted on escapism? What if he starts using her to get back at people?"

"How?" Alice demanded.

"These things put you to sleep and dictate your dreams, right?" Sam asked. "Is there some rule that says they can only give you good dreams?"

"I don't know," Alice admitted.

"So he could use flowerpot girl to terrorize people with nightmares if he wanted," Dean realized.

"Maybe," Alice stressed. " _IF_ it occurred to him, and _IF_ that's actually something genies can do."

"Are we going to take a chance on either of those eventualities?" Sam asked.

"Why not?" Alice demanded. "I mean, come on! Even if all that happens, is it really so horrible? So someone has a few nightmares. I'm sure it'll just ruin their entire life."

"It might," Sam insisted. "And even if none of that happens, let's not forget why we came here in the first place. If the supernatural activity doesn't stop, it's going to tear this family apart. I say we take the vase and stash it somewhere before that happens. Dean?"

Alice shot Dean a look of exhapseration as he floundered.

"Let me guess, you're with mulehead on this one too," she said drily.

"Uh... honestly, yeah," Dean said. "He's got a point."

Alice shook her head.

"Whatever. At this point, I don't really care what you do," she said dismissively. "We're not getting paid no matter what we do."

Sam lead the way back into Mr. Wisp's office, while Alice trailed behind.

"Mr. Wisp, I'm afraid we're going to have to confiscate the vase," Sam said.

"What? But I told you, she isn't dangerous!" Mr. Wisp protested, standing with the vase.

"We're not so sure about that," Dean said.

"Look, it's protocol," Sam said. "We have to bring this thing in, or it'll be our asses."

"But I _need_ her!" Mr. Wisp cried. "I don't know what I'll do- I can't..."

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "We don't have a choice here."

As Alice watched Mr. Wisp coming closer to tears with every passing second, a light bulb went off in her head.

"You know, maybe it's just a vase," she said aloud.

All eyes in the room flew to her in confusion.

"Alice, what-"

"I mean, did either of you see anything weird?" she asked, fixing Dean with a meaningful glance.

"Yes," he responded immediately. "I saw that weird blue chick with my own two eyes!"

"Alice, what are you doing?" Sam hissed at her.

She ignored him, instead turning to Mr. Wisp.

"No you didn't," she told Dean. "It could just be a vase."

"Alice, _protocol_ ," Sam said firmly.

"Sam, we don't get paid enough to follow protocol all the time," Alice snapped. She could see the wheels turning in Wisp's head as he started to realize what she was saying.

"It is just a vase," he insisted. "I'll do whatever it takes for that to be true."

"Hey Dean, what would we usually get paid for bringing this thing in?" Alice asked leadingly.

"Uh..." Dean's eyes darted from Alice, to Sam, and back. Alice didn't have time to deal with his indecision.

"It's a pretty neat little piece," Alice observed. "I'd say we'd probably get a nice bonus for it. Probably about two hundred, wouldn't you say?"

"Four hundred," Mr. Wisp said immediately.

Alice pretended to consider.

"Meh. I don't know. After all, Sam has a point," she pondered aloud. "We could get in a lot of trouble for this."

"I can go up to five hundred," Mr. Wisp said desperately.

"Done," Alice said immediately. She didn't want to push her luck too far.

"I-I'll have to make at trip to the bank," Mr. Wisp said quickly. "I don't have that kind of money in the house."

"That's fine," Alice said. "We'll be waiting for you."

"Alice, you can't do this," Sam hissed angrily.

"Uncle Sam, _relax_ ," Alice grinned. "I'm sure Mr. Wisp understands that he'll have to be more careful with flowerpot girl. I mean, it would be unfortunate if our bosses got wind of more weird stuff happening around here, and sent a more highly paid team, right?"

"I won't summon her in the house anymore," Mr. Wisp assured her quickly. "I'll... I'll figure something out! You'll never hear about her again, _I swear_!"

Alice turned to Sam, hiding her satisfaction and trying to look pleading.

"Come on Winchester, it's win-win," she said.

He looked ready to argue, but then Dean stepped in.

"Dude, we are skint broke," he pointed out.

Sam pursed his lips unhappily, but didn't say anything to stop Mr. Wisp when he made a break for the door.

"I don't like this," he said after Wisp was gone.

"If you really think Wisp is gonna go all Freddie Kreuger on us, just knock him out and take the vase after he pays us," Alice said nonchalantly.

Sam snorted derisively.

"You're shameless, you know that?" he told Alice.

Her disposition changed immediately. It was a long time before she finally shrugged.

"You gotta do what you gotta do," she said.

Not for the first time that day, Alice's tone surprised Sam. She almost sounded regretful. The glance he shared with Dean told him his brother was just as taken aback by Alice's uncharacteristic mood swings as he was.

* * *

Ultimately, Sam decided to let Wisp keep his genie. Darkness had fallen by the time they were paid and on their way, a convenient cover as they roamed the streets in search of a car to jack. Dean and Sam had almost convinced Alice to rent a car instead of stealing on, but the thought of parting with any of her 'hard-earned' money didn't sit well with Alice.

"So, where are we going after we acquire some transportation?" Dean asked.

"Bisbee, Arizona," Alice replied. "Back into the frying pan."

"What's in Bisbee?" Sam asked.

"A... friend," Alice replied. "He owes me everything, and then some."

"He can help us find Ruby?" Dean asked.

"Not exactly," Alice said. "We'll have to work that out later. But when we do find her, it's a good bet that she'll be holed up with other demons.

"Since that _bitch_ has _my_ knife," Alice spat the words contemptouosly, "We'll need something else that can kill demons if we're going to get anywhere near her."

"And your friend conveniently has a weapon like this?" Sam asked skeptically.

"No," Alice admitted. "But he can help us get one."

"How?" Dean asked.

"Look, I'm still working out all the details," Alice snapped. "I'll tell you when I figure it out, okay?"

"Geez, fine," Dean grumbled.

They stole a car from a secluded lot, and immediately started driving. Dean suggested that they get a motel and wait until morning to leave, but Alice was antsing to get going, and Sam was on her side.

"This time travel trip is stretching on too long for my liking," Sam explained.

"Well, amen to that," Dean agreed.

A series of coin flips determined that Alice should take the first shift driving, and Dean won shotgun. As soon as he got into the car, he tilted the seat back, chuckling when he bumped Sam.

"Dude, do you have to lie back so far?" Sam asked in annoyance.

"Road rules, Sammy," Dean gloated. "If you're in the backseat, you're a loser who doesn't get a say in how far back shotgun puts their seat."

Sam's eyebrow's shot up.

"Oh yeah?" he asked. He put his legs up, and poked his feet into Dean's back through the seat. Dean groaned, and shot him a scathing glare as he sat his chair up a few feet.

"This stinks," he complained. "I'm practically vertical."

"Well, road rules dictate that you're in control of your own seat," Sam taunted.

"Will you stop," Alice asked in exhasperation. "You're gonna make me crash this stupid thing."

They drove in silence for five minutes, before Alice abruptly remembered her mental note. She poked Dean, who had just started to nod off.

"What?" he asked, sitting up straight.

"That was a fake FBI badge, right?" Alice asked.

"What?" Dean asked. "That's what you woke me up to ask?"

"Yes."

"Sam's right there, and he's awake," Dean complained.

"Yeah, but he wasn't the one with the badge," Alice pointed out.

"Whatever," Dean grumbled. "Yeah, it was fake."

"Where'd you get it?"

"From a guy," Dean said, intentionally ambiguously.

"Do you impersonate federal agents often?" Alice pressed.

"From time to time," Dean admitted.

"It sounds useful," Alice said. "Before you guys go home, will you teach me how to get badges like yours?"

"You're fourteen," Dean pointed out. "Even if you have a badge, no one's going to buy that you're with the FBI."

"I'm not going to be fourteen forever," Alice retorted. "Someday I'll be old enough to pass for a fed, and when that time comes, it sure would be nice to know where to go for the id."

"A valid point," Dean agreed. "I'll swap you the information."

Alice sighed.

"I'm guessing you're not trading me the secret to procuring illegal credentials for my favorite ice cream flavor," she said drily.

"No way," Dean said. "My question isn't horribly invasive though. At least, I don't think so."

"Fine, shoot," Alice ceded.

"Alright. You were... unusually agreeable today," Dean said, choosing his words carefully.

"What do you mean?" Alice asked.

"Like when you didn't pitch a fit after Sam insisted that we stick with the Wisp case even if they decided not to pay us," Dean said. "Not that I'm complaining about it, mind you. It just got me wondering though... why? I'll admit, I don't know you too well, but I know enough to know that wasn't like you."

Alice was silent for a long time, and Dean thought that she wasn't going to answer him when she spoke.

"I guess... I just, uh..." she faltered, and took another long pause. "I had just about the exact same conversation with my Grandmother once. About the ethics of charging people when we hunt for them."

Alice laughed quietly, sadly.

"She pretty much said exactly the same thing as you did, Sam," she said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror. She sighed.

"Gran was a great hunter," Alice went on. "She was a better person. I wish I could be more like her. But like I said back there, you gotta do what you gotta do. This is how I survive. And whatever else Gran taught me, she taught me survival above all else."

Alice gave Dean an pointed look.

"If you EVER try using that against me, I'll gut you," she promised. Her eyes shifted to Sam, and narrowed for emphasis. "Ever."

After both Winchesters nodded silently, Alice immediately relaxed into her usual snarky mood.

"Those badges better be damn helpful," she said.


	8. The Station

_Stick and move,_ _sharpen up the knife._

_Keep it tight, s_ _tay between the lines._

_Make your mark, take your own advice._

_Don't be surprised when you trip and stumble._

_I'll play the fool again, my old unfaithful friend._

_Stick and move, sharpen up the knife._

_Don't be surprised if you can't stay between the lines._

**Cage the Elephant** , _**Tokyo Smoke**_

* * *

They kept going all night and most of the next day, driving in shifts. They passed through several towns, but only ran into trouble in one.

It was almost dark and Sam's turn to drive when they heard sirens behind them.

"Shit," Sam swore as he slowed. "What the hell are they pulling us over for?"

"Why the hell are you stopping?!" Dean demanded.

"The last thing we need right now is a high speed car chase that ends with an APB out on this rust-bucket!" Sam snapped.

"The last thing we need is to get arrested for driving a stolen car!" Dean shot back. He shut up quickly as a policeman walked into view and tapped on the driver's side window. Sam rolled it down, a tense smile plastered across his face.

"Evening officer. Can I help you?" he asked cordially.

"Registration please," the cop said shortly.

"Sure," Sam said. Dean fished around in the glove compartment and handed the papers out. The cop inspected them, before peering into the window at Sam.

"So I suppose you must be Maria Tanning," he said sarcastically.

"Uh, no, actually, she's my aunt," Sam replied.

The cop looked from the papers to Sam, and then back.

"Wait here," he said. He headed back to his car, taking the papers with him. Sam turned to Dean, eyes wide in what was obviously panic.

"What are we gonna do?" he asked.

"Run for it?" Alice suggested.

"Nah, we'll never make it," Dean said. "Besides, we stole this thing recently. There's always the chance that it hasn't been reported stolen yet and he'll let us go."

"A slim chance," Sam snorted. "Odds are, he'll find out and call for backup right away. We should get out of here before that happens."

"Well we can't run now," Dean snapped.

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Sam demanded.

In the backseat, Alice straightened.

"I might have an idea," she said as a plan formed in her mind. "We can take the long way out of this one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asked.

Alice just grinned.

* * *

Sam was right about the cop calling for backup. Minutes after Alice outlined her plan to Sam and Dean, neither of whom were completely sanguine with it, two more police cars rounded the corner. They parked around the hunter's stolen vehicle, boxing them in. Dean looked around.

"Small town cops," he scoffed. "This stolen car is probably the most action they've ever seen around here."

"I really don't like this plan, Alice," Sam grumbled, eyeing the extra cops suspiciously. Even for a town this small, that was a lot of backup to deal with a stolen vehicle.

"Well I do," she replied confidently.

"Yeah, well there's not a lot of risk in it for you," Sam pointed out.

"I beg to differ," Alice protested. Before she could make her argument, however, the cop who'd pulled them over walked up to the window.

"You boys like to explain to me why you're driving a stolen car?" he asked smugly.

"Uh... we..." Sam trailed off, looking at Dean, who shrugged.

The cop smirked.

"Step out of the car, all three of you. And don't try anything," he said. They did and the cop regarded Alice curiously.

"Mixing with bad company, ain't it honey?" he asked skeptically.

Alice crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes darting furtively. Dean had to admit that it wasn't bad acting.

"They grabbed me," Alice said softly.

"Sorry, what?" the cop said. Two more came over and patted Sam and Dean down against the car.

"They grabbed me off the street when I was walking home from school. I don't know who they are, but I swear I didn't do anything," Alice said timidly. She looked like she was almost in tears.

"Are you saying they kidnapped you?" the man asked. He looked like it was the most horrific thing he'd ever heard.

"Yeah, I guess," she said.

"Well... how long ago?" he asked.

"Yesterday," she replied.

"Right. Um... we'll take you back to the station with us and uh, file a report. Kay?" he said.

Alice nodded meekly and followed him back to his car. Meanwhile, Dean and Sam were cuffed and shoved into the back of another. Alice's car passed theirs and she winked at them through the window.

"I don't know if that performance was Oscar material, but it's definitely enough to get us locked up for the rest of your natural lives if this doesn't go according to plan," Dean grumbled.

"Let's just hope that she can bust us out like she said," Sam said quietly.

* * *

The police station was small and Sam and Dean ended up sharing a cell with a passed out man in a suit. Neither of them spared him a second glance while they watched the door, waiting anxiously for Alice to appear. An hour passed and Sam sank deeper and deeper into gloom.

"I don't think she's coming," he scowled.

"She has to. She needs us," Dean pointed out.

"Does she really? I mean, what makes us so special? She could get any other hunter on the planet to help her gank Ruby," Sam argued.

"I don't think she's gonna leave us. Call it a hunch."

As if in response to Dean's words, they heard crashing, screams and gunshots from the reception area of the station. They both ducked to the floor, listening. It went on for about five minutes, then stopped as suddenly as it had started.

"Dean, what the hell," Sam whispered.

"I don't know," Dean replied.

Behind them, suit man stirred.

"Ugh, my head," he groaned loudly.

"Shh!"

"Shh!"

Both Winchesters silenced him harshly.

"Aargh, quiet!" suit man snapped.

"Shut up!" Dean hissed at him.

"I will if you will," he shot back.

The empty echo of hurried, frantic footsteps drew their attention. They watched the door again. In the silence, they could hear a heavy breathing and soft whimpers of pain.

Suddenly, Alice burst through the door holding a set of keys and their duffel bag.

"We've got to get out of here, now," she panted. She was wearing a shirt that Dean thought was supposed to be white, but which was bright scarlet with blood spatter.

"Alice, what happened?" Dean asked in alarm.

"Later, we have to scram!" she said.

"Whoa, shit," Suit man said behind them.

"Why, what-"

"I'll tell you later, now follow me!" she yelled, cutting Sam off.

She started running, one hand pressed to her side as the Winchesters followed her, leaving suit man staring after them in confusion and horror.

The next room was scene of complete carnage. There were bodies everywhere, some shot, others slashed by knives. Out of the five people lying on the ground, three looked like they were still alive, though none of in good condition. Alice stopped to grab a black jacket off the back of a chair. She shrugged into it to hide the worst of the blood covering her, barely stopping herself from screaming in pain. Every time she moved it was agonizing, but she had to fight through it. They needed to get out of here.

"What the hell happened back there?!" Sam demanded as they ran through the streets.

Alice didn't reply, but she did slow when they reached an alley. The rush of adrenaline was wearing off and the pain was catching up to her. She stumbled, her hand shooting out desperately in search of support. Her fingers met leather and she clung to the material for support. It took her a moment to realize it was Dean's jacket. His arms were around her a moment later, holding her up.

"Alice?" Dean asked in alarm. "Are you alright?"

"No," she replied shakily. "Gunshot wound. Lower left torso."

"Shit!" Dean cursed. "Sam, get the bag!"

Alice let Sam take the duffel bag, leaning more heavily on Dean when its weight left her.

"We have to get out of here, fast," Alice said through gritted teeth.

"Can you walk?" Sam asked.

"Yes, I'm fine!" Alice snapped.

"You're not fine!" Dean shot back as he helped Alice limp down the alley.

"I've had worse," Alice deadpanned.

"What the hell happened back there?!" Sam repeated.

"It almost worked," Alice groaned. "The cops believed me. They were about to send me to a hotel for the night while they got in touch with the Summit PD to confirm my story. I was gonna wait until the station cleared out, then break you guys out."

"So what went wrong?" Dean demanded.

"There was a hunter there, fishing for information on a case," Alice explained. "Alex Ferdle. He knew me."

"Knew you? Like, 1990, knew you?" Sam asked.

Alice nodded.

"What does that mean?" Dean asked.

Sam and Alice both became very quiet.

"Sam, what does that mean?" Dean asked, a bit more loudly.

"It's a long story," Alice said softly.

"I've got time," Dean said.

"But I don't," Alice pointed out. "I'll tell you sometime, but not now. Anyway, Alex wasn't happy to see me. He was always a crazy old coot and things went sour fast."

"Is he dead?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Alice replied.

"And the cops?" Dean asked.

"Collateral," Alice said, emotionless.

"So now what, we steal another car and run?"

"No," Alice said. "No more stolen cars. We're renting one."

"Kind of like I said we should do back in Summit," Dean muttered under his breath.

"Dean... Dean, stop," Alice moaned. "Let me down."

Dean helped Alice to the ground and she collapsed against the cool brick wall of the alley. Her hand was still clamped over the bullet hole in her side, but blood had soaked through the shirt she wadded up against the wound. If she couldn't stop the bleeding soon...

"Sam, there's money in the bag," Alice panted, finding it harder and harder to keep her wits about her. "Find a rental place... get a car, and... come back for us.

Sam dug through the bag to confirm her claim. He frowned.

"Where'd you get all this?" he questioned.

"Took it... off the stiffs at the station," Alice said.

"Ah, that's messed up," Dean mumbled.

"Go, quick," Alice urged Sam.

Sam stuffed the money into his pockets and took off. Once he was out of sight, Alice twisted her arm around, groping her back. The motion sent waves of pain through her and she could tell from the change in Dean's expression that she did a poor job of hiding it.

"What are you doing?" Dean demanded, crouching at her side.

"E-exit wound," Alice gasped, trying not to scream at the pain. "I-is there an exit wound?"

Dean pushed her hand away gently and lifted her shirt slightly to examine her back. It was hard to tell if there was a wound or not through all the blood coating her skin. He used the jacket she had stolen to wipe some of it away, gingerly in case he did find an exit point.

"There isn't," he realized after a minute.

Alice groaned.

"Shit," she swore faintly.

"You're gonna bleed out," Dean observed grimly.

He took off his jacket and the flannel shirt beneath it. In just a t-shirt, Dean shivered in the frigid night air. Most of the time, it didn't seem like winter in this part of the country, but desert nights were not known to be forgiving.

"Here," Dean said. He tossed away the balled up cloth Alice was pressing against the wound and replaced it with the flannel shirt. She grit her teeth and her fingers dug into his arm as she whimpered involuntarily.

"You know we're gonna have to dig that bullet out," Dean told Alice.

She nodded, her breathing labored and uneven.

"I should just get it over with," she said weakly.

She shifted and pulled a switchblade from her pocket.

"We should stop the bleeding first," Dean protested.

"If I... get it out... we can... cauterize the wound," Alice panted, opening the blade and pulling her shirt halfway up her torso.

"You wanna do this here?" Dean said, glancing around.

"There's... no one around," Alice pointed out. "Don't worry, I can... keep my mouth shut."

She nodded toward the duffel bag.

"Gold knife," she groaned.

As he turned to dig through the bag, she sheared off part of her stolen jacket and stuffed it into her mouth. Cool, stale, salt and rust flavored liquid seeped from the fabric over her tongue. Blood. Absently, Alice wondered whose it was. The combination of the taste and the thought that it probably wasn't hers made her gag. She forced herself to concentrate on what she needed to do, but that didn't make her feel any less like throwing up.

Her entire body was shaking, especially her hands, as she positioned the switchblade over the gunshot. The more she struggled to keep her hands steady, the worse the shaking seemed to get.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dean exclaimed as he turned back to her with the gold knife.

Alice glanced at him questioningly. Had she forgotten something important?

"Give me that," he said, placing his hand over the one in which Alice held the switchblade.

She shook her head. She was going to do this herself.

"Alice, let me," Dean insisted, holding her gaze. "You're shaking like a leaf."

She shook her head again, more emphatically. It made her dizzy and her grip loosened on the blade as her head spun. She expected Dean to take advantage of the moment to pry the switchblade from her, but when the world settled again, his hand was still stationary on hers and she still had the knife.

"Alice, look at me," Dean said. He placed a hand on her cheek, guiding her eyes to his face. "You need to trust me."

As she gazed at him, a strange calm settled over her. Strangely enough, she found that she did trust him.

She nodded slowly and relinquished her hold on the blade.

"Okay," Dean said. "You should lie down."

He helped her onto her back and as the pain worsened, she was forced to reevaluate her snap decision to trust Dean Winchester with sticking a knife in her side.

Dean rifled through the duffel bag and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, before moving the bag until it was just above Alice's head.

"Grab onto that," he instructed. Alice complied, her moans of pain muffled by the fabric in her mouth.

Dean uncapped the alcohol and splashed it over his hands and the switchblade. He pulled the flannel shirt away from her side and she felt a rush of warm over her frigid skin.

"Try not to move," Dean cautioned her. She felt his hands on her stomach, his skin burning hot against hers. She lifted her head to see what he was doing, but he pushed her back to the pavement gently.

"Don't move," he repeated, his tone firm and gentle at once.

In the next instant, Alice's side lit up with excruciating pain as Dean poured the remnants of the whiskey onto the gunshot wound. Her screams of agony were diminished to soft cries by the cloth in her mouth. She bit into the fabric as hard as she could and fisted her hands in the duffel bag as she fought the intense desire to squirm away from Dean's fingers and the switchblade. More blood was squeezed from the jacket scraps and her screams cut off abruptly as she choked on the thick, disgusting ooze. Every second dragged as she struggled to breathe, fought to stay still and think of anything but the terrible, all-consuming pain. Just when she thought it had reached its peak, the switchblade hit against something metal inside Alice and she could have sworn she felt the clanging repercussion in her bones.

"Almost got it," Dean grunted, his words seeming far away.

Amazingly, the pain worsened, and suddenly, it was too much for Alice to take. Everything went black, like a switch had flipped in her brain.

* * *

"Almost got it," Dean told Alice as her muffled shouts grew louder and she shook more violently beneath his hands. He pivoted the blade inside her, slipping it around the bullet and trying to force it out.

Suddenly, Alice's struggles subsided and she went limp.

"Shit," Dean cursed. He worked more quickly, dipping his fingers into the wound to hurry the bullet's ascent. It became visible with the next pulse of blood that seeped from the wound and he finally pulled it from Alice's side.

"Got it!" he said aloud. "Hang in there, kid."

He reached for the gold knife. It lay, glowing white hot, in a shallow pool of Alice's blood that hissed and bubbled as it boiled around the blade.

"What the..."

Dean decided that he didn't have time to question the knife's workings. Instead, he lifted it carefully from the searing crimson puddle and wiped the blade clean. He quickly pressed the ruined flannel shirt against Alice's side, quelling the blood that still trickled steadily to pool beneath her. He waited a moment, before taking the shirt away and pressing the white-hot knife against the wound. Blood and flesh hissed violently in the night that, suddenly, seemed far quieter than it had seconds earlier. Dean had hoped Alice would wake up when he cauterized the wound, but she didn't so much as stir while the knife burned her.

Dean set the blade aside, hoping it would cool off on its own. In the meantime, he pressed his thumb against Alice's jugular, searching for a pulse. For a gut-wrenching moment, he thought that she didn't have one. After a moment, however, he felt something, soft and weak against his fingers. It did little to comfort him. Dean had seen this before. Alice was in shock from blood loss. He needed to get her to a hospital and the last thing they could afford to do was show up in an emergency room after what had happened at the police station.

"Damn it Sam, what's taking so long?" he grumbled aloud.

"Hey!"

Almost as if in response, a man shouted at him from behind. Dean turned to see a stranger crossing the dark street quickly, coming toward them. Dean's mind raced, panic fueling the speed with which he devised a ruse.

"Hey!" Dean called back to the man. "I need some help here!"

"What the hell happened?!" the man demanded as he approached cautiously.

"This kid needs a hospital!" Dean said quickly, covertly tossing the switchblade into the duffel bag and hoping the man didn't spot the gold knife. "Or- or a... a clinic! Are there any clinics nearby?"

"What happened to her?!" the man demanded, coming closer to get a better look at Alice.

"I found her like this," Dean lied. "Do you know where a clinic is?"

"Are you stupid?" the man exclaimed. "This girl needs a hospital, not some clinic! Besides, the clinics around here close up at ten!"

Even better, Dean thought.

"Good point," Dean said aloud. "Come give me a hand with her, we have to move fast!"

The man came closer, but rather than give him further instruction, Dean socked him in the jaw as hard as he could. The man fell back against the wall, his head colliding with the bricks with a resounding 'crack'. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Dean gripped him under his arms.

"Sorry, guy," Dean grunted as he pulled him further into the dark alley. "I don't have time to deal with you subtly."

Dean moved double-time, hurriedly stuffing the mostly-empty whisky bottle and blood-soaked cloths into the duffel bag. He left the gold knife out, as it was still searing hot.

As the minutes dragged on, Dean was forced to pull Alice further back into the alley. A gaggle of teenagers walked past at one point, but thankfully didn't notice them in the darkness.

Finally, a tan nissan pulled up to the mouth of the alley.

"What the hell took you so long?" Dean barked at Sam as he got out of the car and jogged over.

"I went as fast as I could," Sam snapped. He nodded to Alice's prone form. "Is she...?"

"She's alive," Dean said. "She's in shock from blood loss."

"Crap!" Sam cursed as he grabbed the duffel bag. "Okay, uh... She needs dopamine. Or epinepherine."

"How about a blood transfusion," Dean grunted as he lifted Alice off the ground.

"Dean, we can't take her to a hospital!" Sam pointed out as he followed his brother to the car.

"There're clinics around here that close at ten," Dean said shortly. "Get the door, Sam."

"Okay, that's a start," Sam said as he opened the back car door for Dean. "But unless you know how to set up a blood transfusion, we're still going to need a doctor's help."

"We can figure it out," Dean said as he set Alice down in the backseat. "I mean seriously, how hard can it be?"

He withdrew from the car and made his way around to the passenger side. He stopped short when he saw the seat.

"Sam, what- what's on this?" Dean asked, wrinkling his nose at the oily yellow substance coating the seat.

"Beats me," Sam shrugged. "Either man up and sit in it or get in the back. We have to move fast here."

Dean shuddered.

"Someone should probably make sure Alice doesn't roll onto the floor anyway," he grumbled.

* * *

"Gah, why doesn't this shit come with instructions?" Dean groaned in frustration, shaking the IV.

He thought that breaking into the clinic would prove the greatest challenge. After all, surely a building that was a junkie's idea of heaven on earth would be an obvious target for robbery. To their credit, the clinic did have a combination keypad lock on the back entrance. Dean wasn't going to hold the system's quality, or rather, lack thereof, against the clinic. Mostly because it had saved Sam and him the two minutes it probably would have taken to sort through the wires in a more advanced mechanism.

"Because the people using this equipment are supposed to have gone through medical school," Sam pointed out as he looked through IV bags filled with blood. "Anyway, we have a bigger problem."

"I don't see how we could have any more problems than we already do," Dean fumed. He shot another worried glance at Alice, slumped over in a raised dentist-esque examination chair.

"Brace yourself," Sam warned. "I have no idea what Alice's blood type is."

"What? Damn it!" Dean cursed as he realized Sam had found a pretty big hole in their plan. "Okay, just... what's the most common one? A positive, right?"

"O positive, actually," Sam corrected him.

"Whatever, just go with that," Dean said dismissively, turning back to the tangled IV line.

"Dean, this isn't a 'whatever' dilemma," Sam said emphatically. "If we don't get this right-"

"Sam, if we don't get something done soon, she'll be dead anyway!" Dean snapped. "Just do it!"

Sam set his jaw, but nodded tensely none the less.

"Alright."

He grabbed a blood bag, and handed it to Dean.

"Hook that up, I'll take care of the other end," Sam dictated.

Dean got to work quickly while Sam searched for the vein in Alice's arm.

* * *

Alice was jolted awake, in the most literal sense of the phrase.

"Gee, why don't you drive into a few more potholes?" came Sam's voice from her side.

Her eyes snapped open and at first, all she saw was gray. Then she realized she was looking out a window at a stormy sky.

"If you don't like how I'm driving, you can drive," came Dean's voice from the front of the car.

Alice turned her head slightly, groaning at the pain caused by the tiny movement. She had a pounding headache, her side hurt like a bitch and her fingertips were sore. Her throat was dry as a bone and she swallowed hard, grimacing.

In spite of the agony that came with it, the slight change in perspective allowed Alice to see that she was in a car. Sam sat next to her, holding something over her head that she couldn't see. He quickly spotted Alice's movement.

"Hey, we've got a live one back here," he said.

"She's awake?" Dean said.

They slowed to a stop and outside, Alice could hear someone honking angrily at them.

"Yeah buddy, eat me!" Dean shouted out the window. "Alice? Hey, can you hear me?"

Alice turned her head a fraction more to see Dean leaning between the front seats, concern twisting his features. Her headache flared and she groaned.

"Hand me the water, Dean," Sam requested.

Dean passed back a water bottle, which Sam uncapped and offered to Alice with his free hand. Alice drank gratefully, the first few sips burning her throat as they went down. As she drank more deeply, the cool liquid turned soothing, and soon she was gulping it down greedily.

"Whoa there, take a second to breathe," Dean chuckled.

Alice broke away, gasping. She followed Sam's arm and realized he was holding an IV bag over her head.

"What the hell happened?" she rasped weakly, the words grating unpleasantly on her throat.

"You passed out while I was pulling the bullet out of you," Dean explained. "Yeah, by the way..."

He dug around in his pocket and pulled something out. He handed it to Alice and she realized it was a .40 caliber slug.

"Thought you might want that," Dean explained.

Alice managed a tight smile.

"It's kind of cool," she admitted, stowing it in her pocket. She eyed the IV line in her arm. "You didn't take me to a hospital, did you?"

"No, we raided a clinic," Sam said.

Alice was impressed.

"Wow, that's, uh..." she struggled to find the right words, before realizing they were right in front of her. "Thanks. Both of you."

"Yeah, well, hunters don't let other hunters die of blood loss," Dean said, settling back in the driver's seat.

* * *

Dean wanted to stop at a hotel so Alice could rest, but both Sam and Alice insisted that it was too risky. With the mess they had left behind them, they couldn't even afford to take the highway, much less check into a hotel. They traveled the back roads across the state until nightfall, when they became hopelessly lost. They were all exhausted, so they agreed to stop for the night and find their way in the morning. They parked off the side of the road behind a stand of trees and thick bushes that would hopefully shield them from all by the most prying of eyes.

Dean slept fitfully for a while and woke after what felt like seconds. The trees blocked out out the moonlight, so he couldn't make out what time it was from his watch. He could hear Sam snoring loudly from the front seat.

He glanced to the side to check on Alice, ready to go back to sleep if she was alright. Alice, however, was not sleeping.

She sat up in the seat next to him, her shirt off, leaving only her bra. She was scrubbing her arms with a scrap of cloth. Trying to get the blood off herself, Dean realized.

Alice was beautiful in the dim light, her thin form leanly muscled and peppered with scars. Most of them looked like knife cuts, but there were a few burn marks as well. On her navel, Dean could just barely make out the dark patch that was her anti-possession tattoo. She was shivering and covered in gooseflesh, wincing as she gingerly wiped around the gunshot that she'd just received.

Dean looked away quickly. He spotted something on her arm out of the corner of his eye and carefully let his gaze wander back, focusing on her forearms. There, he could make out three deep gashes that were in the process of healing. He shuddered as he realized they were torxing marks that matched the ones gracing his arms.

Dean forced his eyes shut after that, determined not to add peeping on a bathing teenager to his long list of offenses. Minutes passed, however, and he still couldn't get to sleep. He considered checking on Alice again, but really didn't want to risk catching her shirtless.

Dean's resolve broke when Alice whimpered softly. His eyes snapped open in time to see her finish pulling on a fresh shirt. Her teeth were clenched and even in the dark, Dean could tell she was holding her breath to keep from crying out in pain.

"Alice?"

His voice was groggy, still thick with sleep, but it was enough to startle Alice. She whipped around and grimaced at the painful consequences of the sharp movement.

"Dean!" she gasped. "You scared me."

"Sorry," Dean apologized.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked suspiciously.

"I just woke up," Dean said. It was true enough. "You're shivering so hard the car's shaking."

"Well, I mean... it's _cold_ ," Alice pointed out, a hint of defensiveness creeping into her tone.

Dean regarded her for a moment and Alice had trouble deciphering his expression in the dark. Finally, he beckoned her with a finger.

"C'mere."

Alice scooted across the seat toward him apprehensively. He opened his jacket and before she could react, pulled her up against him, wrapping the layers of flannel and leather around both of them. Alice had a thought of resistance, but dismissed it quickly.

 _It's way warmer it was than curling up in a ball_ , she admitted silently. Less painful too.

She tried to ignore the electric tingle that shot through her when Dean touched her. The way her heart sped up, trying to steal her breath to fuel its sudden race.

"Thanks," she said uncertainly.

"Hunters don't let other hunters freeze to death," Dean said simply.

"Most hunters really stick together, huh?" Alice asked.

"Not really. Only if they're friends or family," Dean admitted.

"I'm a friend?" she asked.

"You're... our best shot at getting back home," Dean decided, though in truth, he really didn't know what Alice was to him anymore.

"So I gain automatic friend status," she said, amused.

"Yeah, I guess," Dean said.

Alice's breathing evened out after a while as she fell asleep. Dean didn't though. He stayed awake, trying to sort out his feelings.

It wasn't that he'd never met anyone like Alice before. He'd met tons of people exactly like her. The thing that had his feelings running around and tripping over each other was that he'd never met someone as young as Alice who was like Alice. He didn't know how to act around her. She contradicted everything he knew about kids, or teenagers. Experience told him they were innocents and it was his job to keep them safe from the things that hid in the shadows.

Alice was perfectly capable of scaring away the monsters herself and she was far from innocent. Dean had to constantly remind himself that despite that, she was still just a kid. One who swore, drank and had less of a moral compass that most convicts he'd met, but a kid, none the less.

Dean Winchester knew that youth was much more than a state of mind, despite what Alice would say to the contrary.


	9. Bisbee

They found their way again the next morning and were off. It took them two days to reach their destination where it could have taken hours had they dared to take the highway. Dean tried several times to find out what '1990' meant, but Alice and Sam seemed to have some sort of agreement. Whenever Dean tried to broach the subject with one, the other would suddenly bring up some emergency or change the subject, and the explanation would be put off.

They rolled into the small town of Bisbee, a community perched precariously on the Sonoran hills. Alice gave them directions to a 'friend's' house and knocked on the door herself. While they waited, Dean examined the walls. Upon close inspection, he could make out tiny symbols scratched into the plastic lining. He nudged Sam, and pointed them out. Sam shrugged, indicating that he didn't know what they were.

Before Dean could ask Alice about the symbols, the door was answered by a tall, skinny man who looked like he was in his early thirties. He had scraggly brown hair, sunken eyes, and skin that was as pale as death. An odd attribute, considering he lived in the middle of the desert.

His eyes widened when he saw Alice and he started choking after inhaling too sharply. Dean turned to Sam.

 _What a dork,_ he mouthed. Again, Sam shrugged.

"Y-you!" the choking man finally managed to splutter.

"Hey Roger," Alice greeted him casually.

She pushed past him, strolling into his house without waiting for an invitation. Given the man's reaction, Dean guessed that she probably wouldn't have gotten one anyway. Still coughing, the man completely ignored the Winchesters and left the door open to pursue Alice. Dean and Sam exchanged puzzled glances, before Dean shrugged. He led the way into the house.

"Whoa," Dean said when he got a look at the inside.

Dean stopped in his tracks, overwhelmed by the clutter. The entire front room was stacked with newspapers, old magazines, paper clippings, and sheets of paper covered in feverish scribbles. Empty beer cans were tossed here and there among spilled papers and other food wrappers and the walls were plastered with maps, newspaper clippings, and notes.

"Holy," Dean said, sidestepping to try to get out of this room. He could hear Alice and the man, Roger, arguing in the next room over.

Dean made it to the doorway, but Sam wasn't quite as lucky. He knocked into one of the newspaper piles and it cascaded down on him. He dodged to the side, but knocked into a different pile, which he was buried under. Several more piles fell as well, transforming the front room into a sea of papers. Dean started back toward him.

"Sammy? You okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," Sam called from beneath the papery waves, sticking his hand up and giving Dean a thumbs up.

"You need help?" Dean asked.

"No. No, I think I can just- I got it," Sam replied.

"Right. I'm going to see what's going on with Alice and this Roger guy," Dean said, starting back towards the door.

"Yeah. You just go... and do that," Sam said.

Dean stepped out of the chaotic front room, surprised to find the next room over was spotlessly clean, except for a few papers that had spilled over the threshold in the avalanche Sam had triggered. It was a kitchen/dining area, with a tiny table and one chair tucked into the corner.

"You owe me your life and so many others," Alice was saying.

"I don't owe you squat! You completely wrecked my life!" Roger said passionately. "Look at me! I look like one of those hoarders or something. I can't get any sleep anymore, my neighbors think I'm a devil worshiper, and the little family I have left alive think I'm on drugs!"

"You owe me everything," Alice said, walking up and poking him in the the chest with a scowl.

Roger took a step back, gulping.

"I saved your life, your fiancee's life," Alice went on, "your aunt's life, your sister's life, and your pig as a bonus. Now, you are going to help me, or I will track every last one of them down and I will kill them."

"But-"

"I'll kill the pig too," she added.

Roger looked like he was on the brink of tears. He sighed in frustration and defeat.

"Alright, alright. What the hell is it you want me to do?" he demanded.

"I want you to take down the spells shielding you from _them_ , so they can find you," Alice said.

Roger's eyes bulged and amazingly, he became even paler than he already was as the blood drained from his face.

"What?! Why the hell would-"

"I'm hunting a demon," Alice interrupted him. "I need one of _their_ blades."

"So basically I'm bait," Roger said unhappily.

"Yeah, pretty much," Alice confirmed.

"Uh-uh. No way in hell am I doing that!" Roger said emphatically.

"Pig..." Alice said blithely, examining her nails.

Roger made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a groan.

"That's not fair. You can't keep playing that card!" he whined.

"I don't play fair and I will be threatening to kill your pig until the day you die, or manage to remove yourself from my debt," Alice said pointedly.

"Alright, fine. Can I at least call my remaining loved ones to say good bye?" Roger snapped.

"You've got an hour to get your affairs in order. After that, I want the spells down, and you stay in this house. We're going to be watching, and when _they_ come, we're going to keep you from getting tortured for information. Got it?" Alice said.

Roger nodded and Alice seemed satisfied. She walked out the door, shooting Dean a look of consternation when she saw the state of the front room.

"Not my fault," Dean said defensively.

Alice shook her head and made for the door. She stepped on Sam on the way out, drawing a yelp from him. She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest while Dean dug through the papers and helped his brother up.

"Let me guess, this is your fault," she said, gesturing around the room.

Sam looked sheepish and Alice shook her head.

"Clownfeet," she muttered on her way out the door.

Sam looked horrified and Dean laughed out loud.

They followed her out into the blazing Sonoran sun, expecting her to go back to the car. Instead, she knocked on the door of the house across the street from Roger's. It was answered by an old woman.

"Hello ma'am. We're with the CDC. There's been a reported outbreak of an unidentified virus attacking the elderly in this area," Alice said.

"Oh, how terrible," the woman said. Dean immediately felt uneasy when he heard her tone. She sounded like the sweetest, most senile old lady who was ever conned by a heartless demon hunter.

"But how does this concern me?" the old lady asked.

"We're evacuating the area and we're going to need you to go over to the nearest hospital for testing," Alice said.

"Was this on the news?" the woman asked.

"It will be," Alice said. "In the meantime, we need you to go. This is Barry Filmen, he'll drive you," she said, pointing to Sam.

"I will? Oh, of course I will," Sam said.

"But what about my house? Is it contaminated?" the woman asked fretfully as Sam took her hand and helped her down the steps.

"We don't know. Chances are you don't even have the virus, but we can't be to careful," Dean said, smiling.

"Alright then. Just let me grab my purse," she said, turning back to the door.

"Actually, it would be best if you left that here," Alice said quickly. "That way, if your house is contaminated, we can disinfect your purse along with the rest of your possessions."

"Oh... alright," the woman said. She followed Sam down the steps. The look on his face plainly stated that he did not like the job Alice had saddled him with. Alice smiled and waved as they drove away before stepping into the house.

"You're evil, you know that?" Dean said. Alice saw the woman's purse hanging up and started rooting through it.

"Relax, I"m not even taking it all," she said, waving a twenty dollar bill under Dean's nose. "Besides, it's not my fault! Someone that senile has no business living alone."

Despite his misgivings, Dean was forced to agree with her on that last point.

Alice found the sitting room, which featured a large front window with a good view of Roger's house. She procured a stick of white chalk from her pocket and started drawing on the walls.

"What are those?" Dean asked, examining the symbols. They were super-sized versions of the symbols he had seen on Roger's house.

"It's Enochian," Alice explained. "It'll make us invisible to the beings who are coming as soon as Roger takes down his spells."

"Right. And what beings are those, exactly?" Dean asked.

"Wait and see," Alice said.

"So... I just have to sit back and pray that whatever the hell you're doing works?" Dean asked.

"No! Whatever you do, do _not_ pray," Alice said severely.

"Oh. Alright. No praying," Dean said. He sat down on the couch. "So what can I do?"

"Stay out of the way," Alice said shortly.

"Can I ask one question?" Dean pressed.

"Depends on the question," Alice replied.

"What's up with Roger's pig?" Dean asked.

"Oh. That," Alice chuckled. "Poor bastard had a pet pig before... anyway, it died. I convinced him that I saved it and it's happily living on a farm somewhere. Basically, I have leverage."

"That's cruel," Dean said.

"Not really. I think he would hang himself if he knew it was dead. The idiot loved his pig more than his fiancee, which is why she is no longer his bride-to-be," Alice said very matter-of-factly.

"Oh. Ok then," Dean said.

Alice drew symbols on all of the walls and windows, until she circled the whole room and ended where she began.

"Stay here. I'll be back," she said curtly.

She limped out the front door, leaving Dean alone in the house. He watched from the window as she disappeared into Roger's house. She came back a moment later.

"What'd you do over there?" Dean asked.

"I set a trap," Alice replied.

She pulled a chair up to the window and stared at Roger's house. Dean joined her, grabbing a chair of his own.

"So, since we're just sitting here, I would really appreciate it if you would tell me what we're doing here," Dean said.

"Trapping some... things," Alice said carefully. "We used to all fight on the same side... til I realized the cause was all a lie. Now I'm on my own side and they would kill me for what I know if they had the chance. Roger's been shielded for so long because he knows that as soon as the shields go down, they'll come for him. But they'll figure it's a trap, because they're smart, and shields don't just go down like that. So, they'll come, expecting something to be amiss. And they'll know that _I'll_ know that they'll know."

"Okay," Dean said. "Are you going to tell me what ' _they_ ' are?"

"No," she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because damn my soft heart, I've grown a bit fond of you two doofuses," Alice said. "I would prefer to keep you alive."

"Oh," Dean said, taken aback by that.

Alice regretted the words the minute they left her mouth. Admitting to something like that made it real.

"Don't let it go to your head, though," she quickly amended. "If I get a shot at trading your life for Ruby's, I'll still take it."

Beside her, Dean snorted. He was pretty sure that that was as close to affection as anyone could get out of Alice.

Meanwhile, Alice wondered if her words were actually true. They had been, at some point. Before she got to know the Winchesters, she would have sacrificed them to kill Ruby in a heartbeat. But that was before Sam learned about her past and agreed to keep her secrets. Before Dean saved her life. Before they both reminded her what it was like to feel grateful to someone. What it felt like when someone had your back. What it felt like to trust someone.

Suddenly, Alice realized that she _wasn't_ willing to sacrifice either of them. She chewed her lip as the silence stretched on between her and Dean, worry knawing at her. Sure, it was nice to have people in her life again who weren't obsessed with killing her. But it also created a vulnerability.

Alice couldn't afford to be vulnerable.

* * *

Sam returned after a while and they waited together in silence. About an hour after darkness fell, the lights in Roger's house started flickering erratically. Alice stood suddenly, interrupting their vigil.

"They're here," she said abruptly.

"How do you know?" Dean asked.

"Check out the light show," Alice pointed across the street. She started for the door. Dean and Sam moved to follow her, but Alice quickly stopped them.

"No, you stay here," she said. "They can't sense me, but they can you. You just stay here and I'll come get you when it's safe."

Without another word, Alice darted across the street, gritting her teeth when the sharp movements pulled at the healing gunshot wound in her side. The one that would have killed her if not for Dean and Sam.

Alice rolled her eyes at her own thoughts, reminding herself that if it hadn't been for them, she wouldn't have gotten shot in the first place.

Rather than entering Roger's house through the front door again, she went around the back. She crept into the kitchen, where Roger was cornered, whimpering.

"Please, I swear, I don't know where she is," he plead.

"You're lying," said the woman standing over him. She had black hair and was about 5'5, dressed in a suit. Her back was turned to Alice.

"Very perceptive," Alice said loudly.

The woman whipped around to face her.

"Alice," she said in greeting.

"Anna," Alice acknowledged. "It's been a while."

"Only two years," Anna said. "Time on that scale... it means nothing to my kind."

She took a step toward Alice and Alice took a step toward her. Behind Anna, Roger pulled out a box of matches, lit one, and threw it to the floor. Flames erupted in a circle and Anna was stuck in the center of it. She looked around at them, then back at Alice.

"I see you learned a few new tricks," Anna said. The dancing flames cast three long shadows on the walls of Roger's kitchen. One shadow spread dark, shifting wings, only to draw them back again as if cringing from the heat of the fire.

"Holy oil," Anna commented. Alice thought she saw the Angel shudder, but it could have been nothing more than the haze created by the barrier of heat between them. "Where did you get it?"

"I keep it around," Roger explained shakily. "Since you freaks tore my life apart looking for Alice."

"If you would have given us the answers we sought, we would have left you in peace," Anna said pointedly.

"We don't have time for this. Where are the others?" Alice asked.

"They'll be here soon," Anna said. "I'm sorry it had to come to this."

"It doesn't have to be this way. I just need one thing from you," Alice said.

"I can't help you. You know that," Anna said. "I would be hunted."

"It's not that bad, really," Alice said.

"Not for you. All it took for you to become invisible were a few symbols carved onto your ribs," Anna snapped. "Me? I would have to take much more drastic measures."

"Yeah, and getting symbols carved into your ribs is absolutely painless," Alice snarked. "Look, I don't have time to chat about old times. I need your blade. Just on loan. I promise I'll give it back."

"I can't. It would violate my orders," Anna said.

"Did anyone order you not to give it to me?" Alice asked.

"No."

"So, just let me have it. This wouldn't be the first time you bent the rules for me," Alice retorted.

"No. But I was punished severely the first time. Never again," Anna said resolutely.

"That's a pity. I'm going to have to kill you and take the knife by force then," Alice said.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Anna questioned.

"Douse you with holy oil. Light you up," Alice answered.

"You wouldn't do that to me," Anna said.

"Wouldn't I? Last chance Anna," Alice shot back.

Anna's eyes were drawn to something behind Alice.

"About time. Where were you?" she asked.

Alice spun around, to find herself face to face with a tall Hispanic man who looked like he was in his mid twenties. Alice swallowed hard.

"Alice," he said in greeting.

"Naziel. You've aged," she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking.

"Barely," he replied. He waved his hand and the holy fire around Anna died down. Alice backed up a step, mind racing. Reality hit her hard in the gut. This was going to be the day she died.

* * *

Dean paced around the room anxiously.

"Dude, calm down, she's only been gone five minutes," Sam said from the window.

"I don't like this," Dean growled.

"Yeah, I'm not thrilled with it either," Sam said.

"Do you know what she's luring here?" Dean asked.

"I- Ahh... no," Sam said.

"You're lying," Dean accused.

"Well... it's kind of... it's complicated," Sam said.

"Is it?" Dean asked. "Because if there's something I need to know, you'd better tell me Sam. Wait, did she make you promise not to tell me?"

"What? No. No she didn't," Sam said.

"Then why won't you tell me Sam?" Dean asked.

Sam scrambled for an excuse. In an unbelievable stroke of luck, one provided itself.

"Hey, come look at this," Sam said from the window.

"What is it?" Dean asked. He joined his brother at the window, just in time to see a large group of men, maybe ten, heading around to the back of Roger's house.

"Okay," Dean said. He pulled out his gun and started for the door. "That's it, we're going in before she gets herself killed."

"Alice Smith is as good as dead already," came an unfamiliar voice from behind them.

Sam and Dean both drew their weapons and whipped around to take aim at a man who stood in the shadows of the hall which lead to the back of the house. He stepped forward and as the light hit his face, pitch black eyes were revealed.

* * *

"So. Are you going to kill me now? After everything we went through?" Alice asked Anna. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Roger slowly creeping into the front room. Naziel spotted him, but didn't seem to care about his escape.

"You were prepared to kill me," Anna pointed out.

"Yeah, but I'm a piece of shit," Alice said sharply. "You're all good and virtuous."

"I'm sorry. But I have my orders," Anna said.

"Right," Alice said, a nasty edge to her words. "After what we saw-"

Naziel backhanded Alice quickly, sending her stumbling back into the table. It cut into her side sharply and she cried out, clutching the gunshot. Her hand met moisture and a downward glance confirmed that she was bleeding.

"Naziel!" Anna snapped.

"You saw nothing!" Naziel roared. "This blasphemer, corrupter, iniquitor-"

"She's child!" Anna said, her tone dark. She moved from Naziel's side to kneel by Alice. "She was a child then, and she is still a child now."

Anna laid her hand on Alice's side and Alice gasped as warmth spread through her. The pain disappeared a moment later and Alice didn't need to look to know she had been healed.

"A child we have been ordered to terminate," Naziel hissed. "Or do you plan to give in to her lies, sister?"

"No," Anna said, though she held Alice's eyes.

"Than _kill_ her, don't _heal_ her," Naziel spat.

"There was nothing about cruelty in our orders," Anna said pointedly. "She doesn't need to suffer."

"Anna..." Alice trailed off, struggling to find the right words. "I-"

"I can't be sorry, Alice," Anna interrupted her. She stood, though she still held Alice's eyes.

"I know," Alice replied. She took a shaky breath. "Will you, uh... will you say hi to Gran for me? Tell her I'm sorry I couldn't make it up."

"I will speak with her on your behalf," Anna assured her.

Quick, smooth and silent as death, a blade slid from Anna's sleeve into her hand. It was a dirk, constructed of an alloy found only in heaven and sanctified by the highest authority. It was a beautiful weapon, deadly to even the most powerful beings. Alice's fragile life was a waste of its power.

"Go on," Naziel urged.

Anna watched Alice for a long moment and though her expression didn't change from its stoic set, Alice could tell that she was conflicted. Hope flickered in Alice for the briefest of seconds.

Then Anna turned to Naziel.

"You do it," she said.

"Our orders-"

"Were to kill her," Anna interjected. "It was not specified that I should be the one to land the blow."

"It would prove beyond a doubt that your loyalties lie with heaven," Naziel said insistently.

"No one doubts my allegiance," Anna argued.

Naziel's expression twisted into one of scorn.

" _Everyone_ doubts your allegiance, _sister_ ," he snarled.

Anna recoiled from his words, but recovered quickly.

"Well then," she said steadily, "Their faith in me should return when I do nothing to stop you from killing her."

Anna disappeared with a faint whoosh, leaving Alice alone with Naziel. Fury flashed across his face for a fraction of a second, before his features settled back into a mask of serenity.

"All the better," Naziel said. His blade slipped from his sleeve, identical to Anna's. He took a step toward Alice and she flattened herself against the wall.

This was it. Her last moment on Earth.

"You've caused a lot of trouble for me, Smith," he said steadily as he approached her slowly. "It will be a good thing when your feet cease from their constant defilement of this world's ground."

"If you're going to kill me, can you skip the long flowery speech and just get on with it?" Alice groaned.

A sadistic grin escaped Naziel's cool facade.

"With pleasure," he purred.

"Whoa there, chuckles!"

Alice and Naziel's eyes snapped to the back hall, where Ruby stood with her hand hovering over a sigil painted on the wall in blood. Her arm was still bleeding, though it didn't seem to bother her much.

"It's not nice to start the party until all the guests have arrived," Ruby smirked.

Her hand slapped against the sigil with a wet smack. Alice shielded her eyes as Naziel ascended with a brilliant flash of light. When the glow faded, Ruby looked Alice over, her eyes settling on her bloody hands.

"Aw, that party pooper didn't spoil the big event, did he?" Ruby pouted.

Alice just glared at her.

"Alright, come on in," Ruby called over her shoulder. Demons streamed in the back door, gathering in the tiny kitchen, and overcrowding it. Alice pushed herself even harder against the wall, surrounded and weaponless. The demons parted to let Ruby move to the front.

"I'll be honest," Ruby confessed. "I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to go to Roger of all people for help. I mean seriously, you had to know I would have eyes on him, right?"

"I wasn't expecting you to have the guts to show up here with Angels incoming," Alice admitted.

"Guess you underestimated me," Ruby smirked.

"How'd you get past them?" Alice asked.

"Your sister has the same rib decorations as you do," Ruby reminded her.

"They cover up the stench of demon?" Alice questioned.

"If they didn't would I have been able to sneak up on our mutual stab-happy friend?" Ruby retorted.

"I bet you think you've got me this time, don't you?" Alice asked.

"Don't I?" Ruby purred in satisfaction.

"What are you waiting for then?" Alice demanded. Ruby was holding back and she wanted to know why. Besides, the longer she kept the demon talking, the more time she gave Sam and Dean to make their move.

They were going to make a move... right?

Alice's heart faltered as she realized she could also be giving them time to slip away. She dismissed the thought, while carefully keeping her thoughts and expression separate. Dean wouldn't leave her for dead.

"We're waiting for your little friends," Ruby explained.

Alice stopped breathing.

"The Winchesters?" Alice asked, struggling to keep her tone even. "They split after our last little encounter."

"Oh," Ruby said, raising her eyebrows. "So, the demon I sent to check out that sweet old lady's house is going to come back and tell me I only get to torture one bitch to death tonight?"

Alice forced herself to breath again. Suddenly, she found herself hoping that Sam and Dean had made a break for it.

"Something like that," Alice lied.

Ruby turned to another demon, who possessed a young girl's body.

"Mills, you're sure there were three of them?" she demanded.

"Yes," Mills the demon replied. "Two guys, and her."

Ruby turned back to Alice, smirking.

"Nice try," she said. "Honestly, I'm surprised you bothered. You must like these guys."

"I don't like anyone," Alice reminded her.

"Hey, look, I don't blame you," Ruby laughed. "They're both hot as hell. After all, I would know, right?"

She leaned closer to Alice, her grin widening.

"How's this for a plan," she said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind Alice's ear in a deceivingly tender gesture. "I won't touch you until my gang here has ripped them into a hundred little pieces."

Ruby wrapped her hand around Alice's throat, constricting cruelly.

"Then, after you've watched your friends die bloody, I'll finally get around to killing you," Ruby gloated, her grin stretching further still until it formed an ugly, animal snarl.

Her friends. It was a good thing Alice was already being strangled, or she would have choked when Ruby spoke that word. Alice hadn't had friends for a very long time. With a start, she realized that was what Sam and Dean were.

Her friends.

She was also suddenly reminded of the reason she had stopped making friends in the first place.

"Does that make us the guests of honor here?"

Alice's eyes widened when she heard Dean's voice from the front room. Everyone in the kitchen turned and through a momentary gap in the demons, Alice saw Sam and Dean standing in the doorway, brandishing...

Buckets. How deadly, Alice thought dismally.

In the next instant, however, water flew through the air, hitting the floor hard and splashing back up, soaking everything in just seconds. Steam rose in waves and the room exploded with screams and shouts as demons flailed in pain and panic.

Ruby let Alice go and she fell to the floor, gasping for breath as she realized the buckets had been filled with holy water. Someone stepped on her leg and she cried out, scrambling into a corner as the madness escalated. A gunshot rang out, but Alice couldn't tell who was shooting. Demons ran and writhed and shook themselves in an attempt to get away from the holy water. The floor was one big, steaming, inescapable puddle, and the less fortunate demons were pushed down and trampled by their comrades. Their shrieks rang the loudest in the confined space of Roger's tiny kitchen.

"Alice!"

She heard Dean's voice from somewhere in the midst of the fray.

"Dean!" she called back. She searched through the swarming, enraged demons for Dean. Instead, she spotted Sam and Ruby wrestling on the floor. Something glinted silver in Sam's hand and Alice's heart skipped a beat.

He had her knife.

Then the demons closed in, fighting back now. Their attack was disorganized, but intense. Alice went unnoticed for a moment and in that time, two flashes of orange lit up the room. She hoped that one of them was Ruby dying.

Steam and shrieks and gunshots filled the air and suddenly, Alice was being hauled to her feet by the demon Ruby had called Mills.

"This is all because of you, you little shit!" the demon hissed.

Its fist drew back and Alice flinched away from the blow she anticipated.

The punch never came. Alice heard the swish of wings and light exploded from Mills' eyes and mouth. Mills fell to the floor and Alice saw Anna behind her, wielding her angelic blade.

"Close your eyes," she said.

"Dean! Sam! Close your eyes _NOW_!" Alice shouted, shutting her own tightly.

Ruby spotted Anna and realized what was happening. She had been dancing around Sam while he tried to stick her with the silver knife. Now, she went on the offensive in the blink of an eye. She kicked Sam, grabbed the knife from him and dived out of the window a second before Roger's house lit up with a blinding white light. It blinked out and Ruby stood, considering her options. In truth, she only had one at this point.

Retreat.

Ruby took off as fast as Allison Smith's legs could carry her, and she didn't look back.

* * *

Alice felt a hand on her shoulder and tentatively opened her eyes.

"I knew you weren't going to hang me out to dry," Alice said, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"I have been sent here to kill you, since Naziel is unable to return," Anna informed her.

Alice's expression fell.

"Wait, who is this?" Dean asked.

"Not now Dean," Alice said.

"I know who it is," Sam realized. "Anna. Right?"

"Yes, I am Anna."

When Sam spoke, Alice remembered something important.

"Sam, the knife?" she asked urgently.

He shook his head and Alice cursed. Then she realized it didn't matter.

"But you're here to kill me," she repeated Anna's words.

"Those are my orders," Anna clarified.

"What?!" Dean demanded. He shoved his way in front of Alice, glaring at Anna. "Hell no! You're not gonna touch her!"

"Dean," Sam warned.

"Get out of the way," Anna said.

"No," Dean said resolutely.

Alice cleared her throat from behind him.

"Look, Dean, this is touching, but stupid," she pointed out. "You're about to get yourself and Sam killed, and I'll still die too. How about we try to cut down on the death toll here?"

"Bullshit!" Dean growled.

Sam strode over, putting a hand on Dean's shoulder.

"Dean, you don't know what you're dealing with here!" he hissed urgently, keeping his eyes glued to Anna like he expected her to smite them all at any minute. Anna turned her gaze on Sam and he froze, a shiver running down his spine.

"Do you know what you're dealing with?" Anna demanded of him. "Do you know what I am?"

"You're an Angel," Sam replied.

"Say what?" Dean asked.

"I am," Anna confirmed. "But that's not all."

She turned her gaze to Alice, who peeked out from behind Dean, despite his restraining hold on her.

"I am a servant of the lord, as you so enjoy reminding me," Anna told Alice. "And I have made my choice."

She extended her knife and all three hunters tensed. Instead of sticking them with it, however, Anna flipped it, grabbing it by the blade and holding the handle out to Alice. She stared at the dirk for a second, before taking it.

"I have rebelled against Heaven for you, Alice Smith," Anna said solemnly.

"Heaven doesn't serve the right cause anymore," Alice reminded her.

"I know," Anna replied. "But that doesn't change the fact that I will be hunted."

"I'm sorry," Alice said genuinely.

She and Anna shared a long glance and Sam and Dean almost felt like they were still speaking to one another.

"Do what you must," Anna finally said. "This is the last time you will see me."

"Good-bye, Anna," Alice said.

The Angel disappeared, leaving Alice and the Winchesters alone in Roger's house.

"Okay," Dean said. "This has been put off too long already. I want answers and I want them now."

Alice and Sam looked at one another and Alice sighed heavily.

"Fine."


	10. The Locket

"Alright, first of all," Dean began, "Who- no, _what_ was that, and how do you know her?"

He, Sam and Alice were jogging across the street back to the old lady's house.

"Shouldn't you wait until after we take care of this demon to start the Q&A?" Sam asked.

"Every time I try to get answers out of you two, we have to wait to do something," Dean snapped. "Start talking now."

"Her name is Anna. She's an angel," Alice said, her breath short as she hurried up the porch steps.

"An angel?" Dean asked, hot on her tail.

"That's what I said."

Alice burst through the front door, and turned to Sam.

"Which closet?" she asked.

"Hall," Sam replied.

"There's no such thing as angels," Dean said, following Alice and Sam to the hall closet.

"Whatever. I'm not going over the disbelief speech with you," Alice said absently. She examined the symbol roughly drawn in chalk on the closet door.

"How the hell did you guys swing this?" she asked incredulously.

"Ingenuity, brute force, a little exploitation of the natural demonic tendency to talk way more than is good for anyone involved," Sam said dismissively.

"I'm impressed," Alice admitted.

"Hey!" Dean said, waving his hand in front of their faces angrily. "You're doing it again!"

"Doing what?" Sam asked.

"That thing where you two go off and have your own little conversation while I sit here like an idiot trying to ask questions past you," Dean snapped.

"Well we _are_ trying to kill a demon," Alice said in exasperation. "Just wait until we're on the road, okay? Five minutes?"

"Five minutes," Dean allowed grudgingly. "Then it's answer time."

"Answer time," Alice agreed. She gestured to the door handle, standing ready with Anna's blade. "You wanna do the honors?" she asked Dean.

Dean prepared to open the closet door, but Sam stopped him.

"Hang on," he said. He held his hand out to Alice. "Why don't you let me take care of this?"

Alice relaxed her offensive stance and handed Sam the dirk.

"Fine," she said, stepping aside.

Sam examined the weapon.

"Are there any special tricks I need to know about this thing?" he asked Alice. She shrugged.

"It's pretty straightforward," she said. "Stick 'em with the pointy end."

"Alright," Sam said. "Here goes. Dean?"

Dean waited a few tense seconds to make sure Sam was ready, before he threw the door open. The demon inside barely had time to hiss at the hunters before Sam barreled into the closet blade-first. An inhuman shriek rang through the air and orange light exploded from the closet, only to blink out an instant later. Sam emerged from the closet, blood dripping from the angelic blade.

"Now that's what I call a test run," Alice said. Sam surrendered the dirk to her and she wiped the blood from it's blade carefully. "Let's scram before the cops show up."

"Answer time?" Dean pressed as they fled the house.

Alice groaned aloud.

"Whatever," she said dismissively. "Where were we?"

"Who or what just gave you that knife?" Dean asked.

"It's a dirk," Alice corrected him. "And I already told you, that was Anna. She's an angel."

"Anna the angel," Dean repeated. "That's just..."

"Wrap your head around it quick and move on," Alice snapped as they climbed into the car. She turned to Sam. "Why is he so skeptical of everything?" she demanded.

"Beats me," Sam shrugged as he started driving.

"Okay," Dean said quickly. "Let's say I do believe that she's an angel- which I don't really. But assuming that I did, what's your connection with her?"

"I agreed to be her host for a short time when me, Gran and Allison in 1890," Alice said. "Long story short, Heaven has a department that makes sure time doesn't get messed up too badly. When the trickster sent me and my family back, it caught their attention. Anna was sent to walk with us. Guide us. Her job was to make sure we didn't step on the wrong ants and stop Abe Lincoln from being born, or... some back to the future, butterfly effect crap like that.

"In 1990, I... I talked her into doing something she shouldn't have. And as a result, she got in a hell of a lot of trouble. Heaven was seriously pissed at me and Allison too. Before they took Anna away, she carved Enochian symbols into our skeletons so they couldn't find us. Even though it wasn't exactly disobedience, since they didn't technically order her not to do it, she still got into a lot of trouble. I assumed she was dead, but... I guess they gave her a second chance. But now..."

Alice polished a spot on the angel blade with a piece of her jacket.

"Anna just stuck her neck out for me again, giving me this blade. Worse, she disobeyed a real order by letting me live. There's no way the other angels won't kill her this time."

"So that's what '1990' means?" Dean asked. "That's... that's a hell of a story."

Sam and Alice were both silent, but Dean got the feeling that it wasn't the silence of finality. It was an awkward, heavy-hanging silence that implied there was more to be told.

"Is that the whole story?" Dean asked.

Sam glanced back at Alice, like he was asking her permission.

"It isn't?" Dean scoffed. "How much more complicated does it get?"

"1990 was a hell of a year," Alice said quietly.

"Ok, so you gonna leave me hanging forever, or finish the damn story?"

"You tell him," Alice told Sam. She turned, staring out the window.

"So, you already know Alice's sister became a full-fledged witch while they were staying with Ruby in 1890," Sam explained. "Well, after they escaped the angels in 1990, she used the powers she'd acquired to help Alice create the demon-killing knife. Unfortunately, the recipe she had called for the blood an innocent soul."

Dean was silent for a moment as he absorbed that information.

"Blood as in a pricked finger, or...?" he asked hopefully.

Sam's silence said it all.

"So you and your sister..."

Alice refused to meet his gaze.

"Ferdle was there when Allison cast the spell," Alice said. Her tone was flat, and Dean could tell from her expression that she was a thousand miles away. "He saw what happened first hand."

"You mean he saw you kill an innocent," Dean accused, his tone scathing. "Who? Who did you sacrifice to make that knife?"

The silence in the car was suffocating. Alice let her face fall into her hands. So much for Dean being a friend. After this, she would count herself lucky if she didn't have to add his name to the list of people who wanted her dead.

"Who, Alice?!" Dean demanded.

Alice turned to face him, her expression cold. She knew she was never going to make him see this from her perspective, but this wasn't about convincing anyone of her innocence. This was about making sure that he knew she didn't regret what she'd done.

"No one!" she snapped. "Just some nobody Allison decided was clean enough to do the trick. I never even knew his name. But you know what? That knife is the most useful tool that any hunter has ever had. We traded one life so we could save countless others!"

"And you really believe that was right?!"

"We weighed the gain against the loss and decided it was the best option," Alice said flatly.

"Well you decided wrong! You can't just play god like that, deciding who lives and who dies!" Dean stormed.

"As if you're a saint," she said, facing forward again.

"Maybe I'm not squeaky clean, but I never deliberately-" Dean couldn't even bring himself to say it again.

"Look, just drop it! I don't need a lecture from you! Just because you're old enough to be my father doesn't mean that you are!" Alice shouted.

Dean couldn't believe her apathy. Her attitude alone was enough to shock him into silence. He glared at the dry desert scenery flying past them, reorganizing his impressions.

"So, Sam," Dean started. "You, uh... you knew about this all along and you didn't think it was worth mentioning?"

"Dean, let's not do this now," Sam said softly.

"Yeah? When _do_ you want to do this?" Dean demanded. "I'm tired of stalling tactics, Sam. Especially from you! I get Alice keeping secrets, especially when-"

Dean checked himself abruptly, but Alice knew what he was going to say. Especially when her secrets were so damning. She wanted to scream at him, maybe throw a few punches. Why did he get to judge her? Why did he get to decide that what she'd done was absolutely wrong, with no margin for ambiguity?

But Alice held her silence and reigned in her temper. She forced herself back into objectivity. The problem at the heart of this wasn't what she'd done, or even what Dean thought of her now. The hard truth was that she had let herself get too close to Dean. If she had kept her distance, what he thought of her wouldn't matter. He could judge her all he wanted and it wouldn't hurt, because she wouldn't care.

With a pang, Alice realized her course was clear.

"But you?" Dean went on, focused on Sam and oblivious to Alice's internal revelations. "Really? What, did you just not think this was important enough to tell me about?!"

"Dean..." Sam shook his head, and pulled the car over. "Come on. Alice, you stay here," he ordered.

Alice narrowed her eyes and glared at him dangerously, tempted to follow him just to show him he couldn't boss her around.

Sam realized what she was thinking.

"Please?" he added quickly.

Alice really didn't feel like getting up anyway.

"Whatever," she said, turning away from him to stare out the window.

Sam got out of the car, and lead Dean a few feet from the car before turning to face him.

"So?" Dean demanded. "What do you have to say for yourself?!"

"I didn't tell you because Alice asked me not to," Sam said simply.

"But she didn't make you promise anything?!"

"No."

Dean couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"So we've been riding around with a mass-murdering little psycho this whole time and you didn't think I needed to know?!" Dean demanded.

"Dean, what could I have told you that you didn't already know?" Sam snapped.

"Are you kidding-"

"No, Dean, I'm dead serious!" Sam interrupted him. "Dude, the first thing she did after meeting us was shoot you! Then use us as bait, then torture you for information-"

"Do you have a point?" Dean cut him off.

"Yeah," Sam said, steadying his tone. "You already knew we were riding around with a 'little psycho'. I mean, come on Dean! Are you really surprised by this development? 'Wow, Alice doesn't have a frigging conscience! Wow, she kills people!' Does this really come as a horrible shock to you?"

"It doesn't have to come as a shock, Sam!" Dean yelled. "Are you forgetting the part where it was specifically mentioned that this guy was fucking _innocent?_! Hunters are supposed to protect innocent people, not slaughter them!"

"I'm not trying to say what she did was right, Dean!" Sam shot back. "I'm not defending her, or anything she's done! I'm just saying, instead of taking your issues with Alice out on me, why don't you work with me to take care of this?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean demanded.

"It means..."

Sam glanced past Dean to the car and lowered his voice. His tone changed as well. It was calmer, more collected, but harder as well.

"Look, we need Alice to tell us how to get home," Sam explained. "After she tells us what we need..."

It took Dean a second of reading Sam's eyebrows to realize what he was implying.

"What are- Are you trying to say we should kill her?" Dean hissed, glancing at the car.

"She's dangerous, Dean," Sam pointed out. "The world doesn't need people like Alice Smith."

"Sam, she's _fourteen_ ," Dean stressed, "and you want to put her in the ground?"

"Salt and burn her," Sam corrected him.

"Dude, are you kidding me?" Dean asked again. "Aren't you the one who's always going on about how things aren't black and white?"

"And they aren't," Sam agreed. "But you said it yourself, Dean, she's psychotic. Did you see her defending herself back there? She doesn't feel any remorse for anything she's done! You do know what that means, right? If she could justify it, she would do it again! Hell, she might do it even if she couldn't justify it!"

"She's a _kid!_ " Dean snapped again.

"All the more reason to put her down!" Sam argued. "If she's bad now, how much worse is she _going_ to be?!"

"No," Dean said resolutely. "Just no."

"Dean-"

"I'm done, Sam!" Dean yelled. "We're not killing her. End of story, okay?!"

Sam set his jaw, but said nothing more.

"Let's just get out of here," Dean growled, storming back to the car. He threw open the passenger side door, startling Alice.

"Get in the back!" Dean barked.

"How about you- hey!"

Alice shrieked as Dean pulled her out of the car unceremoniously. He opened the back door for her, meeting her scathing glare with an adamant scowl. She fumed rebelliously for a minute, before stalking into the car and slamming the door behind herself. Sam, who had followed Dean back slowly, prepared to get into the driver's seat.

"Hey!" Dean said, catching his attention. "Do I have to take your gun?"

Sam snorted in disbelief.

"You know, I don't get you," Sam said, closing the door so Alice couldn't hear them. "We've killed better people for less. _I've_ killed better people, people I've been way closer to, for way, way less."

"Didn't I say we were done with this discussion?" Dean snapped. "Now are you gonna give me your gun, or-"

Dean cut off as he suddenly remembered the promise he and Sam had made Alice when they first met her.

_I promise I'm not going to kill or hurt you unless you ask me to._

Dean chuckled as he realized this argument was essentially the most pointless thing in history. Clever, pretty, psychotic Alice had already taken care of herself.

"Did I miss a joke?" Sam demanded.

"Yeah, you did," Dean said. He re-opened the passenger side door and got into the car. "Just drive."

"Seriously, what's funny?" Sam asked as he got into the car.

Dean shook his head, forcing his features into a serious expression.

"So, what's the next step here?" he asked. Neither Sam nor Alice spoke, so he clarified. "Come on, we've got a demon to kill, don't we? What's our game plan?"

"The next step is to find Ruby," Alice said. "There's a solid trail from Bisbee that shouldn't be hard to follow. After that... improvise, I guess."

Alice sighed wearily, rubbing her eyes with her fists.

"Whatever I end up doing though, I'll do it alone," she said.

"Huh?" Sam frowned.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asked.

"I'll summon the trickster for you," Alice said. "You can kill him, or make a deal with him, or force him to send you back, I don't really care."

"What? Why?" Dean asked, turning to look at her.

"Dean, seriously?" Sam exclaimed in exasperation.

"Ruby's still breathing," Dean pointed out. "What, you're gonna go after her alone?"

"Not alone," Alice assured him. "Just not with you two."

"Why not?" Dean pressed.

"Look, I've got my reasons, okay?" Alice snapped. "Besides, I thought you guys wanted to get back. Or don't you?"

"We do," Sam assured her.

"So is there a problem?" Alice demanded, directing the question at Dean.

He held her eyes, trying to gather his racing thoughts enough to put them into words. There was a problem; he wasn't ready to leave. But the reason he wanted to stay...

"No," he lied.

"So that's that then," Alice said with an air of finality.

"Thanks," Sam said.

"Don't mention it. I guess hunters don't force other hunters to stay fifteen years away from where they're supposed to be, huh?" Alice said.

Dean thought he heard a note of sadness in her voice, but quickly dismissed the notion as wishful thinking.

* * *

The ritual for summoning the trickster was easier than Dean imagined. It required an offering and an abandoned sanctuary.

"They prefer different things each, but chickens will do in general," she explained as she drew a large circle on the ground in chalk.

They were in an old church that had been empty for years. Alice had declared it to be the perfect location for their summoning rite.

Alice moved to the chalk circle's center and drew a smaller circle, just big enough for her to sit in. She drew spikes from this, indicating all four major compass points, and the four smaller points as well, before going around the outer circle, and etching intricate symbols along it's perimeter.

"What's that?" Sam asked.

"Containment spell," Alice explained. She went on to the inner circle and started drawing more symbols along it's inside edge. "Protective barrier. In case he decides he'd rather eat me than the cheap rotisserie chicken."

Dean started to say something, but Alice cut him off.

"Now whatever happens, stay out of the circle," Alice told Sam and Dean severely. "I know how to handle these bastards and I can deal with whatever he throws my way. But keep in mind that it's a god of trickery. He can get in your head and you can't trust anything that comes out of his mouth. So don't be stupid, and mind your manners."

"I'm glad you've got so much faith in us," Dean muttered.

"Faith is a limitless commodity of which I have none," Alice said.

She placed the chicken inside the outer circle and stepped into the inner circle, cleared her throat, and began to chant.

" ***** Jeg kaller deg, trickster, du som doth holde mange navn. I god vilje, tilbyr jeg denne maten til deg, dette som jeg har jobbet for å tjene, og for å skape, med mitt blod, og og min svette og hardt arbeid. Kom, bønnfaller jeg deg. Kom til meg, tilkalle jeg deg på denne tiden, i denne tiden av behovet og det haster at du kan søke å plassere din nåde og barmhjertighet, og gi meg nåde for dine øyne."

"That was not latin," Sam observed.

"Alice, what was that?" Dean asked.

"It was Norwegian."

Their gazes were drawn to a man who stood in the outer circle. Both of the brothers recognized him immediately.

"Loki," Sam muttered angrily. It was the same trickster who had sent them back to 1992 in the first place.

"It was rough Norwegian," Loki said, "and you said some of it wrong, but hey, most people just demand my presence in English."

The trickster tipped his head in Alice's direction appreciatively. "Nice try. You have my undivided attention. Why the summons, sweetheart?"

"This is Sam and Dean Winchester," Alice said, pointing to them. "They don't belong here."

"I can see that," Loki said. He grinned widely. "Oh, it was me, wasn't it? Yeah, it was me, you don't even have to say it."

He laughed and the sound echoed hollowly in the empty warehouse. Dean was about to snap at him, but Alice shot him a look and he kept quiet. The trickster's laughter eventually died down and he turned back to Alice.

"You want me to send them back?" he asked. She nodded.

"Alright. Reasonable. When are they from, originally?" Loki asked.

"2005," Alice said.

"I will do it for you, gladly," he said.

"But?" Alice asked.

"What makes you think there's a but?" the trickster asked.

"I've dealt with your kind before. There's always a but," Alice said.

"Ah, yes. You have, haven't you? I thought you looked a bit familiar. You're Alice Smith. You killed two of my brothers," Loki said.

"One whelched on a deal, and the other one didn't give me any choice," Alice said.

"Yeah, well... they were both dicks, I guess," he said thoughtfully. "In any case, you're right, there is a but."

"Alright, what?" Alice asked.

"I want you to get something for me," he said.

"What?" Alice asked.

"A locket," the trickster said. "I'll even tell you where it is."

"Go on," Alice said.

"It's currently held by a clan of shapeshifters in Boston," the trickster said.

"I think I know which ones you mean," Alice said.

"Good. Summon me again when you have it. And by the way, I prefer chocolate to chicken," Loki said. He gestured at the circle. "Could you let me out?"

Alice nodded to Sam, who scuffed a section of the circle with his shoe, breaking it. The trickster disappeared immediately.

"We should get going. Assuming they haven't moved, I know exactly where the bastards are," Alice said.

"How?" Sam asked.

"It was the last hunt my grandmother and I went on together," she said. "We never got to finish it."

* * *

They drove straight to Boston, stopping only to eat and sleeping in shifts. They checked into a hotel when they got there, so that they could all catch up on their sleep. There wasn't a lot of talking. Dean was conflicted about finally being so close to going home. He was glad that he would be getting back. But he also felt a touch sad. Honestly, he knew exactly why, but he didn't want to admit it to himself.

In spite of everything, he knew he was going to miss Alice.

The three hunters stared at an apartment building from across the street. The plan was for Sam and Dean to go in the front door and draw the clan's attention, while Alice would sneak in the back and find the locket.

"Is this the only hunting strategy you've got?" Dean asked skeptically. "Live distraction, sneaky tactics, hopeful reunion and escape?"

Alice fixed him with an annoyed stare.

"It's a time-tested strategy," she insisted, "to be employed when your task is both to infiltrate and decimate."

"Where'd you get that, the guerilla book of tactical bedtime stories?" Dean scoffed.

Alice rolled her eyes.

"Let's just do this," she said.

They waited for Alice to disappear down the street before approaching the complex. Sam walked up to the front door and knocked. Dean frowned at him.

"What?" Sam demanded.

"Move over," Dean sighed, shooing Sam out of the way. He kicked the door in.

It hit a man, who had presumably been coming to open it and they stepped over him into a hall. They left the door open behind them, an escape route that, admittedly, they probably wouldn't get the chance to use. Almost immediately, doors opened down the hall and alarmed heads poked out.

Dean adjusted his grip on his knife. "Come and get us you sons of bitches," he growled.

With a snarl, the closest one charged and the others followed his example.

* * *

Alice heard the shouts from the front of the building as she was picking the lock on the back door. She moved more quickly.

The locked clicked a few seconds later and she entered a kitchen. She held a silver dagger ready and tread quietly. She hadn't the faintest idea where to start looking, so she picked a door. She put her hand on the knob and burst in quickly, finding it empty. It was an office. She closed the door behind her and started going through the desk drawers.

* * *

Sam and Dean were backed into the corner of a living room. They'd killed a few shifters, wounded others, but they were outnumbered and quickly tiring.

One of the monsters got in a blow to the side of Dean's head. Dean retaliated with a slash that missed its mark. The shifter grabbed his arm and twisted savagely, forcing Dean to drop the knife. It cracked its head against Dean's and his vision dimmed around the edges.

"H-oh, buddy," Dean panted. "You have got one thick skull."

He doubled over as the shifter landed a hard punch to his gut. Dean was immediately hauled to his feet and he could see that Sam wasn't faring too well either. The shifter he was fighting had his knife and was preparing to cut his throat. Dean shouted desperately and fought harder, but a voice from the doorway stopped both shifters in their tracks.

"Don't kill them!" barked a short woman.

Dean's eyes turned to the speaker, a tiny wisp of a woman with obviously fake blue hair, cut in a pixie-do. Her nose and bottom lip were pierced, adorned with sapphires.

"Bring them upstairs," she ordered.

The shifters restraining Sam and Dean obeyed without question or comment.

* * *

Alice was upstairs, in another living room. She was rooting through the drawers in a coffee table when she heard a gun cock behind her.

"Don't move," said a voice behind her.

Alice whipped around to see a boy of no more than seven years dressed in pajamas. Her attention was drawn to the gun in his hand.

"I've got another one," he yelled over his shoulder. Alice leapt to the side, out of the way of the gun and then back at him, bowling him over. She wrenched the gun out of his grasp and shot him. He seemed stunned, but she could tell that he wasn't really hurt, which meant the bullets weren't silver.

"David!" a male shifter yelled from the stairway. Alice was knocked to the side and she lost her grip on her knife, which skittered under the coffee table. Someone pulled her up by her hair and she cried out in pain. She saw Dean and Sam being hauled up the stairs, both cut, bruised, and subdued.

Screw subdued, Alice thought, kicking, scratching and flailing against the shifter holding her. He knocked her head against the wall and she was too dizzy to resist for a moment.

"Stop!"

A shifter with blue hair that was, amazingly, shorter than she was, walked over.

"Just hold them. I want to know why they're here," she said, cocking her head at Alice in inquiry.

"We're here to kill you," Alice panted. "Duh."

"And why would you want to do that?" the shifter said. It wasn't hard to guess that she was in charge around here. It was obvious from her tone and the way the other shifters looked her.

"You're monsters. We're hunters. That's generally how it goes," Alice said.

"That's shame. You're kind of cute," the shifter said, trailing a hand down Alice's jaw. Alice recoiled in disgust.

"Don't you touch her!" Dean growled, straining against the shifter holding him and receiving a solid whack in return.

"Ooh, touchy," the lead shifter said. She turned back to Alice. "Hmm," she said thoughtfully. "Maybe if I looked more like this?"

Her features shifted and there was suddenly another version of Dean standing in front of Alice. Her eyes widened at the sudden change. Her mind raced as she struggled to reconcile what had just happened with what she knew about shifters. Admittedly, monsters weren't her family's specialty. Still, Alice had seen shifters changing form before. She knew it was a messy business. How the hell had this one done it so quickly, cleanly and seamlessly?

The shifter cracked its neck and adjusted its collar to accommodate it's new form. Alice's attention was drawn by a glint of gold. A locket around the shifters neck. Her heart sped up.

The shifter leaned in close to Alice and drew in a deep breath.

"Oh yes," it purred with Dean's voice. "You want him. I can smell it on you."

"Dude, that is _so_ messed up," Dean groaned from across the room. Alice couldn't see him, but she heard the slap he received for his trouble.

Alice shuddered at the sensation of the lead shifter's breath her neck. She peered over its shoulder to meet the real Dean's eyes as he looked on in horror. She held his gaze for a moment, then glanced at the silver dagger which lay beneath the coffee table. Dean followed her glace and spotted the weapon. He nodded at her minutely.

Alice started to covertly finger-spell 'distraction', but then remembered that neither Sam nor Dean could sign to save their lives. She bit back a sigh of frustration.

Alice grit her teeth and leaned forward, capturing the shifter's mouth with her own. It grinned into the kiss and Alice forced herself not to gag when its tongue slid over her lips. The shifter behind her held her by her biceps. Alice carefully curled her left hand up, tugging her sleeve to free the small silver blade sheathed at her wrist.

A murmur rippled through the room and a few of the shifters laughed. Dean took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He waited a moment and then threw his head back, hitting the shifter holding him square in the face. He twisted free and dashed for the coffee table, grabbing the knife and slashing at the shifters who came after him.

Alice brought her knee up on the one in Dean's form. Her hidden blade slid seamlessly into her grasp and she brutally slashed the shifter holding her. It shrieked as the wound burned. Alice grabbed the locket from the lead shifter's neck, pulling it back as she yanked the chain brutally. The chain snapped and the shifter fell over backward.

Dean killed the shifter holding Sam and the three of them flew from the room before the lead shifter hit the ground.

"Get them!" it roared.

Alice lead the way down the stairs, holding the locket up for Sam to inspect as they went.

"Got it!" she yelled.

"Great!" Dean shouted, bringing up the rear. "Now move!"

Alice reached the bottom of the stairs and came face to face with three shifters. She buried her tiny silver wrist-knife into one's thigh, then ducked to let Sam and Dean take the others. She hurriedly grabbed a third knife from her ankle and finished off the shifter she had dropped.

"Come on!" Sam called back.

Alice leaped up and followed the Winchesters as they burst onto the street. They raced to their car, the shifters in hot pursuit. They jumped in and sped away. One shifter jumped onto the trunk of the car, but quickly lost his grip and fell aside. Alice watched tensely as their quarries were lost around a corner. Even after they made it a few blocks away, her heart didn't stop pounding.

"Hey! Alice!"

She realized Dean was talking to her and snapped around to face him. He was driving, watching her in the rearview mirror.

"Yeah?" she asked breathlessly.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked.

"I'm good," Alice said, though she wasn't entirely sure that she was.

Dean didn't look like he believed her, but Sam spoke before he could press further.

"You said you got it?" he asked.

"Yeah," Alice replied. She handed it to him and he inspected it.

The locket was simple, shaped like an egg with a seam running around it. Sam tried to open it, but the latch wouldn't budge. He shook it and heard something rattling around inside.

"What is this thing?" he asked.

Alice shrugged. "No idea."

"Well should we really just hand it over to the trickster without knowing what it is?" Sam asked.

Alice shrugged again and kept her silence.

Dean watched her as they drove back to the motel. She kept licking her lips and twitching. Her foot tapped incessantly, though she didn't seem to be aware of it. Dean didn't say anything, but he was worried about her.

When they got back to their room, Alice made a beeline for the bathroom. Dean's eyes followed her, full of concern.

"We need to find an abandoned church," Sam said. "The sooner the better. I say we go out now and start looking."

Dean shook his head.

"I don't know about you," Dean groaned, settling into a chair, "But I'm sore as hell. And starving too. I say we take a breather, eat something, clean up, and then go church-hunting."

"Fine," Sam conceded. "I'll grab something to eat. Be right back."

He left and Dean got up and went to the sink in front of the bathroom to rinse off his knuckles. They were scraped and covered in blood, only some of which was his. Alice emerged from the bathroom while he was gingerly drying his hands. She scanned the room briefly. Dean admired her alertness, even at a time when they should have been safe. Like him, she knew that no one was ever really safe.

"Where's Sam?" she asked.

"Getting food," Dean said. "We're gonna look for an abandoned church after we eat and clean up."

Alice nodded, her eyes settling on his hands.

"Want some help wrapping those?" she asked.

"Sure."

Alice retrieved hydrogen peroxide and a roll of bandages from a duffel bag. Dean shifted uncomfortably as she splashed his knuckles with peroxide, though it wasn't the sting that bothered him.

"Look, Alice, are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you I wasn't?" she replied without taking her eyes off his hands.

"Maybe," Dean admitted. "Because if you're not really alright, it would be great if I knew. You know. So I can try to help?"

"You can't help me, Dean," Alice sighed, setting the peroxide aside and grabbing the bandages. She still refused to meet his eyes.

"You don't know that," Dean argued.

"Yes I do."

"How?"

Alice's actions became jerky, her fingers moving more quickly as she wound the bandages around his knuckles.

"Because you're leaving," she said, her tone becoming snappish. "And even if you weren't..."

She bit her lip and fell silent. Her hands shook as she tore off a length of tape to secure his bandages. Dean stopped her, covering her hands with his. She finally met his eyes and he could see the pain hiding in their swirling depths.

"Tell me," he requested.

"I can't," Alice said.

"Yes you can," Dean persisted.

"I won't," Alice clarified.

"That doesn't work," he said.

"What?" Alice demanded.

"Pushing everything away," Dean said. "Shoving all the pain down and pretending it isn't there."

Alice tore her hands from his grasp, alarmed by his perception.

"Pain is for weak people," she said. She sounded pathetic, even to herself.

"No, pain is for everyone," Dean corrected her.

Alice snorted, quickly turning to sarcasm to escape the feelings jam she could feel coming.

"And here comes the part where you remind me that you've been hurt too, right?" Alice said bitingly.

"I'm not trying to patronize you," Dean said. "But yeah, I've taken more than my fair share of shit from life. That's how I know that acting like nothing's wrong just makes it worse."

"So what do you suggest I do?" Alice challenged.

"Act human," Dean said. "Talk to someone. I don't know. Show something to prove you aren't dead."

Alice glared at him for a moment while she considered his words. Without warning, she stepped forward and grabbed handfuls of his shirt. He thought she was going to start hitting him. Instead, she pulled him down to her height and placed her lips on his solidly. The action took him by surprise and he pulled back immediately. She followed, pushing him against the wall and moving to kiss him again, but he shoved her away, none too gently.

"Alice, no!" he said, harsh and adamant.

"Why not?" she demanded, unfazed by his tone.

"It's wrong!" Dean exclaimed, thinking that it should have been obvious, even to morally ambiguous Alice.

"Come on, Dean!" she plead. "You can't ask me to open up and then push me away when I do."

"This wasn't what I was talking about!" Dean protested. "You can't just kiss someone twice your age and call it opening up."

"Why not?" Alice asked insistently. "It's sure easier than talking."

"You're way too young for this kind of talking," Dean said.

"So what, I'm old enough to kill a man, but I'm not old enough to love one?" she challenged.

The words took Dean completely off guard, with their familiarity more than anything else. The same thought had crossed his mind more than once before.

"You're too young to be doing either," he said after a pause that he knew was too long.

Alice's mouth twitched up slightly. Her eyes glinted with satisfaction and Dean knew that she already had a response.

"And yet, I've killed men all my life," she said smugly.

For a moment that seemed to stretch into infinity, Alice just watched him, silently gauging his reaction. Finally, she leaned up and pressed her lips to his again. Decisive though her actions were, she moved excruciatingly slowly, as if to keep him from bolting. Dean stayed still, knowing he should push her away. He should tell her no. That he didn't want her. But...

Alice pressed forward, emboldened by his indecision. She brought her hands up to either side of his face as she deepened the kiss and without telling himself to, Dean found himself going along with her, parting his lips to let her in. He moaned softly as her tongue brushed against his and his arms snaked around her waist of their own accord, pulling her closer. In body, she was barely reaching the cusp of womanhood, yet the way she touched him, the way she moved with him, the way that she was the one grabbing him and pulling, demanding...

He groaned as one of her hands slipped below his waist. The gentle touch brought him back to his senses and he grabbed her hand, more roughly than he intended. He shook his head violently.

"This is wrong," he growled again.

"It feels right to me," Alice breathed, running her fingers from his ear, down his neck.

Dean clenched his eyes shut, letting his head fall back against the wall as the sensation of her flesh against his raised goosebumps on his arms.

"God damn it Alice, why are you doing this?" he plead.

 _Alice, what the hell is wrong with you_ , he thought, though he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.

"Say the word, Dean," Alice said. Something had changed in her voice. Her tone was harder.

Dean opened his eyes to find her glaring daggers at him.

"What?"

"Say you don't want me!" Alice all but spat. "Tell me to go away. Tell me you don't want this, and I'll fucking stop."

Dean stared at her, conflict roiling within him. He opened his mouth, but couldn't make the words come out. Alice's eyes narrowed and she grabbed his shirt again, pulling him down to her height aggressively.

"Go on, _Winchester_ ," she egged, her tone almost mocking. "Tell me how you can't, because _I'm_ just a kid, and _you're_ such a righteous fucking person."

 _Why does she get to be mad at me_? Dean thought. This was all fucked up and backwards and sick as hell.

"You don't want this," he finally managed.

Alice looked so mad, he was sure she was about to start throwing punches. Instead, she spoke, her voice low and filled with fury.

"Don't tell me what I want and don't want!" she growled. "You don't _fucking_ know what I want! _I_ know what I want... and I know what you want. If you're going to deny it, fine. But get on with it, and stop wasting my time."

Dean struggled to find the right words. He knew what they were, but god help him, he didn't want to say them.

"Hey!"

Sam's voice sounded from the doorway and Dean had never been happier to hear his brother.

"What's going on?" Sam asked cautiously.

Alice let go of Dean's shirt and drew away from him.

"Your brother thinks he's a therapist," she snarked.

Sam glanced at Dean questioningly, but he just straightened his shirt and shook his head.

They ate quickly, in tense silence. Sam had gotten the address of an old, long abandoned church from a Burger King employee, so they skipped the searching phase. Time was moving too quickly for Dean. He needed to talk to Alice, but not in front of Sam. He need to tell her... what could he tell her?

Dean cared about Alice. He needed her to know that. He couldn't be with her, not the way she wanted him to be. At least, not now. He needed her to understand why.

The closer they got to the church, the more anxious Dean became. He was running out of time. He snagged Alice's arm when they reached the church.

"Hey," he said. "Can we talk for a second?"

"No," Alice said shortly.

Sam raised his eyebrows at Dean.

"What's up with you two?" he asked.

"Nothing," Dean snapped.

"Liar," Sam accused.

"Nothing that's any of your business!" Dean amended. The words came out more nastily than he intended.

"Yeesh, okay!" Sam said defensively, throwing his hands up.

Dean groaned.

"Sorry, Sam," he said. "It's just... complicated."

Sam nodded in acknowledgement, but didn't press for clarification.

They broke into the church through a back window. This building was much smaller than the one they'd summoned the trickster in before and the floors were carpeted. They ripped up a large square of it and Alice drew the binding and protective spells. She placed the chocolates and the locket in the outer circle and stepped into the center circle. She recited the rite to summon Loki, who appeared immediately.

He turned to take in his surroundings, looking surprised. He spotted the locket on the floor and raised his eyebrows, picking it and the chocolates up.

"Well. That was fast," Loki said. He tucked the locket into his pocket and popped a piece of candy into his mouth. "I'm impressed."

"You've got the locket, now send them back," Alice said, an impatient edge to her words.

"Geez, someone sounds like they're down to their last nerve," Loki chuckled. "Fine, fine. But you have to let me out, because I'm powerless in here."

Loki gestured to the protective circle.

Sam stepped forward, wiping away part of the line. The trickster stepped out, walking towards the Winchesters with his hands outstretched.

"This might tickle a bit," he warned jovially.

"Wait," Dean said abruptly. Loki stopped, his hand inches from Dean's forehead.

"I... I don't want to do this."

"What?" Sam and Alice said at the same time.

"Dean, what the hell?" Sam asked.

Dean looked down at his shoes, but didn't reply.

"Dean, you have to go," Alice said. "You don't belong here."

"Yeah, well neither do you. You seem to have made yourself perfectly at home," Dean replied.

"It's different for me," Alice said. "You have something to go back to."

"I'm not sure that I do," Dean said.

"Well, this is quite a change of heart," the trickster said. His eyes darted quickly from Dean, to Alice, and back. His eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? A woman?"

"Dean, you can't stay here!" Sam said.

"Well, I'm going to," Dean said stubbornly.

"And what, leave me alone?" Sam demanded.

"Yeah, I was under the impression that your father's dying wish was for you to look after him," Alice said.

"It was?" Sam asked, surprise coloring his tone.

Dean waved his arms in front of him, as if to ward off all of the reasons to go and the questions his actions were raising.

"Look, it's my choice and I'm staying, and that's final," he said. "You know, no one said _you_ have to go back either, Sam."

Sam opened his mouth to argue, but the trickster interrupted him.

"So let me get this straight," he said. "You went to all the trouble of summoning me, wasting a good cumulative six minutes of my time, just to decide that you don't require my services after all?"

"Yeah," Dean snapped.

"No!" Sam protested. "We can't stay here, Dean! We have work to do! We still have our own demon to kill, or did you forget about that already?!"

"No, I haven't forgotten!" Dean said. "But stop and think about it for a minute, Sam. If we stay, we can help Alice with Ruby and we have a better shot at old Yellow Eyes than ever!"

"What?"

"You lost me," Alice admitted from the protective center circle.

"Look, Sam, Dad's not dead yet," Dean said, working it out as he spoke. "Alice has that... Anna's knife-"

"It's a dirk!" Alice corrected him with a scowl.

"Whatever!" Dean said in exasperation. "The point is, we have a weapon that can kill a demon! We have one-up on this thing, because as far as it knows, we're just kids hunkering in a motel room somewhere!"

"So..."

Sam trailed off as the possibilities began to form in his mind.

"We could kill it now... Save Dad... Mom..."

"Even Jess," Dean pointed out.

"There are people here," Alice interrupted, "Who have no idea what's going on."

"Yeah, well you're not the only one with demon problems, or secrets," Sam said.

Alice turned her gaze to Dean.

"Why do I get the feeling John's death was more complicated than you let on?" she asked.

"Hey, I shared as much with you as you shared with me," Dean said defensively.

Alice snorted derisively. "Sure."

"We're getting sidetracked," Dean said pointedly. "Come on Sam, tell me this isn't the best idea I've ever had."

Sam nodded slowly, but there was an eager, almost savage glint in his eyes that Alice had never seen there before.

"I don't know why this didn't occur to us sooner," he said.

Alice rolled her eyes, but the trickster spoke before she could insult the Winchesters' intelligence.

"Okay, time-out," Loki said, holding his hands up. He made a show of clapping loudly, circling around to pat Dean on the back. "That was a brilliant display of genius at work. But..."

"Hey, hands off," Alice barked from the circle.

"Yeah... I don't think so," Loki tsked. His hand tightened in Dean's jacket.

"Hey, what-"

Dean went silent and froze in place, almost like someone pausing a movie. Sam did too, leaving Alice and Loki the only ones who could move. The protective circle that she had left unbroken protected her from the trickster's influence.

"What are you doing?" Alice growled.

"Look, I don't know what future me was thinking when he zapped these knuckleheads back here," Loki admitted. "They probably pissed me off and I'm sure they really deserved the temporal displacement."

"So leave them here," Alice growled, balling her hands into fists.

"Yeah. Wish I could," Loki said. "But their plans to change the future... big no-no. You should know that better than anyone, Smith. If I let them muck around with this stuff, timeline management is going to rain a shit storm down on my head that I don't even want to think about."

Alice frowned.

"You're a piece of shit, dime a dozen Norse deity. How the hell do you know about Heaven's timeline management department?" she wondered aloud.

Loki sniffed.

"Glad you think so much of me," he said. "How I know isn't really any of your business. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

He placed a hand on Sam's shoulder and one on Dean's.

"I've got a mess to clean up," he said.

"If you hurt them, I'll track you down and stake you," Alice threatened reflexively.

"Relax," Loki soothed. "I'm just putting my toys back where they belong."

He winked at her.

"See you around, Smith."

With a faint whoosh, all three vanished, leaving Alice alone in the empty building. She blinked quickly, trying to process what had just happened. Her eyes stung and she realized with a jolt that she was about to start crying.

"No, fuck that," she grumbled aloud, rubbing her eyes roughly. She took a deep breath to steady herself. They were gone, but that was what she wanted, right? To get rid of the vulnerability they had created in her?

 _Yes it was,_ Alice reminded herself as loneliness welled up inside and threatened overwhelm her.

 _You've been lonely for two years_ , she told herself. _Lonely is good. Lonely is strong. Don't be weak._

Alice pulled Anna's dirk from the sheath at her waist. She looked it over, the rare metal cold against her hand, clear and smooth as a mirror. The blade was thin enough that all she could see of herself in its polished surface was one eye. Its colors swirled and shifted as she watched, reminding her of all the promises she still had to keep.

 _It is kind of creepy that your eyes change color now_ , she thought to herself absently.

She put the blade away with a sigh and forced herself to leave the church. She had business to attend to. Business that would help her forget the Winchesters.

Especially Dean.

* * *

 ** _*:_** I call thee, trickster, who doth hold many names. In good faith, I offer this food to you, this as I have worked to serve, and create, with my blood, and my sweat and hard work. Come, I beseech thee. Come to me, I summon thee at this time, in this time of need and urgency that you can apply to place your grace and mercy, and give me grace in your eyes.


	11. Her Mark

Light flashed brightly for a moment in the middle of a crowded playground. When it died down, Dean and Sam found themselves surrounded by small children who stopped to gawk at them. Dean ignored their dumbfounded gazes.

"I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch!" he shouted, stomping away from the monkey bars under which he and Sam had materialized.

"Dean, where are you going?" Sam asked, hurrying after him.

"I'm calling Bobby," Dean said shortly. "He's got to know something."

"About what?" Sam asked.

"I don't know! Either how to get back or how to find that asshat," he said.

"Dean, you're not going back!" Sam exclaimed.

"The hell I'm not!" Dean barked.

He found a payphone and dug around in his pockets for change before punching in Bobby Singer's number.

"Hello?" Bobby's voice came.

"Bobby? I need your help," Dean said.

"Holy Mother of- Dean?! Is that you?" Bobby asked.

"Yes it's me," Dean said.

"Where in tarnation have you two muttonheads been the past month?! I've been looking everywhere for you! And why the hell would you leave your car?! Are you okay? Is Sam with you?"

"It's a long story. Look, we're in..." Dean glanced around and snagged a passing man.

"Where are we?" he asked.

"Main street," the man replied.

"Don't be stupid!" Dean snapped. "What town, in what state?"

"Uh... Roset, Indiana," the man replied nervously. Dean let him go and gave Bobby the information.

"We'll be in a motel. We'll call you and let you know where," Dean said.

"Fine. I'd better get some answers from you boys and they'd better be some damn good ones," Bobby said.

"Bobby, hang on," Dean said abruptly, as something occurred to him.

"Yeah?"

"I need to find a hunter," Dean explained quickly. "Her name is Alice Smith. Do you know her?"

"Never heard of her," Bobby replied. "Why are you lookin' for her?"

"It's, uh... it's complicated," Dean said.

"Whatever you say, I ain't pryin'," Bobby assured him. "Have you tried asking Ellen? She's got lines on a lot of hunters."

"Will do, Bobby. Thanks," Dean said.

"Give me a call as soon as you know where you're stayin'," Bobby instructed. "I'll pick you up and you can come get your damn car out of my yard."

"Okay," Dean said. "See you then."

He hung up and dug through his pockets again, cursing when he realized he didn't have enough change for another call.

"Sam, you got any change?" Dean asked, holding his hand out. Sam scowled at him.

"Dean, what are you doing?"

"Bobby doesn't know anything about Alice, but he says Ellen might," Dean explained shortly.

"No, I mean, _what are you doing_?!" Sam stressed. "It's over, Dean! We're finally out of Alice's mess and your first thought is 'I know, let's dive right back in'?!"

"What do you want me to do, Sam?!" Dean demanded. "Just walk away? Forget about it like nothing ever happened?"

"Dean, just-"

"Don't Sam! Just don't!" Dean warned. "Do you have any damn change or not!?"

Sam exhaled loudly, running a hand through his hair as he fought to contain his frustration.

"How about," he started, struggling to keep his tone even, "We find a motel and call Ellen from there instead of letting the payphone eat all our money?"

"Fine!" Dean huffed. He started off down the street and Sam followed.

* * *

"Yeah, it's a motel 6," Sam told Bobby over the phone. He was seated on one of the two beds in the room he and Dean had rented. Across from him, Dean practically bounced with agitation and impatience. Sam insisted on calling Bobby to let him know where they were before Dean could call Ellen.

"Alright, see you soon," Sam said in closing.

Dean snatched the phone from him and hurriedly dialed Ellen's number. Sam watched as Dean counted dial tones, drumming his fingers on the nightstand.

"Maybe you should try again later," Sam suggested after a few seconds.

Just as the words left his mouth, he faintly heard someone answering the line.

"Ellen! That you?" Dean asked.

"Dean Winchester?" came the incredulous reply. "Where are you? You know Bobby Singer's been looking for you the past month?."

"Yeah, I know," Dean replied.

"Are you alright? Is Sam with you?"

"We're fine," Dean assured her.

"What the hell happened to you two? Where have you been?"

"We were, uh... on a hunt," Dean said simply.

"Hunting what?" Ellen asked, an undertone of suspicion lurking in her words.

"A... demon," Dean finally settled on. It was true enough. "Look, Ellen, I need your help."

"What with?"

"I'm looking for someone. A hunter named Alice Smith," Dean said.

"Alice Smith... there's a name I haven't heard in a long time," Ellen said.

"So you know her," Dean said, straightening.

"Well I did, but mostly by reputation," Ellen said. "Last time I heard anything about Smith must have been... almost ten years ago. Dean, why are you looking for her?"

"It's really complicated," Dean said. "I'd rather not get into it right now. Anyway, you said you last heard from her ten years ago?

"Yeah," Ellen replied. "1997. I'll never forget it. Smith was recruiting hunters for some crusade against this one demon she was obsessed with. Caused quite the stir in our circles. Nasty business... Smith, uh... well I guess you could say she didn't play well with others."

Dread crept over Dean.

"Don't I know it," he muttered, then, more loudly "So, what happened to her?"

"I couldn't say," Ellen admitted. "Smith dropped off the map after a showdown with another hunter. Right in the road house, as a matter of fact. One of the gnarliest bar fights I ever saw, and you're talking to someone who's seen more than her fair share of bar fights. Anyway, after that she vanished. A few people have asked around about her since, but not very many and not for a while."

"Who asked about her?" Dean pressed.

"Uh... aside from her family? Caitlyn Felsborn, um... Jared Witford..."

"Wait, her family? What family?" Dean asked.

"Some of her cousins," Ellen replied.

"Are they still around?"

"Can't say for sure. The Smith clan is pretty reclusive. Tight-knit bunch that keep to themselves for the most part," Ellen said. "They've got a few acres of land in Arkansas where they all live."

"I'm gonna need to know where that is," Dean said, grabbing a pen from the nightstand and preparing to scribble around the text in a pizza advertisement.

"Dean, you're not planning on paying them a visit, are you?" Ellen asked.

"Why not?"

"It's just... look, I know your Dad never really socialized you with other hunters," Ellen started. "But... you probably don't want to get tangled up with the Smiths."

"Why not?" Dean repeated.

"They don't fool around," Ellen warned. "The family's been in the business going back centuries. They deal with the heavy stuff, creatures and forces most hunters don't even know about. Stuff that makes your average demon look like a domesticated koala bear by comparison. The things the Smiths take care of... they work on a completely different level than hunters like you and Sam. Once you step over that threshold, there's no going back. Anyone who ever goes near the Smiths ends up getting in way over their heads and the lucky ones die bloody."

"Sounds like our kind of crowd," Dean joked.

"Dean," Ellen sighed. "Look, you and Sam aren't my boys. I can't tell you what to do and what not to do. But for John's sake just as much as yours, I have to ask you to stay away from the Smiths. Please."

Dean was silent for a moment.

"Look, Ellen," he finally said, "Thanks. But this is something we have to do."

"Why?"

"Like I keep saying, it's-"

"Really complicated?" Ellen interrupted. "Yeah, I got that part."

She sighed again, this time in defeat.

"Fine. Just don't ever say I didn't try to talk your dumb, stubborn ass out of this," Ellen said severely. "The place is off I40, just outside West Memphis."

"Thanks, Ellen," Dean said as he scrawled a note on the ad.

"Don't thank me," Ellen said grimly. "Think about what I said. Thank me if you come to your senses and decide to cancel this trip."

"Alright. Take care," Dean said.

"You too, Dean," Ellen replied. "Tell Sam I said hi."

"Will do. Bye."

"What did Ellen say?" Sam asked as soon as Dean hung up.

"Alright, get this," Dean said, taking another look at his notes. "No one's heard anything from Alice since 1997."

"That's never a good sign," Sam speculated grimly.

"Why not?" Dean demanded. "Maybe it just means she got out of the game."

Sam snorted derisively.

"Are we talking about the same Alice here?" he asked.

"I'm serious, Sam," Dean shot back heatedly. "Remember what she told us right after she used us as bait? That first day, at Ruby's motel?

"Right. How hunting was her hobby and she didn't want to waste her whole life on it," Sam recalled.

"Exactly. Right before Alice dropped off the grid, she was recruiting hunters to go after Ruby with her. Maybe she finally ganked the bitch."

"Dean, we know that's not what happened," Sam argued. "Ruby saved my life not two months ago... or, maybe three? I don't know, this time travel thing's got me all messed up. Anyway, the point is, Alice can't have killed Ruby."

"We don't know that for sure," Dean said. "Maybe we changed something when we got mixed up in all this."

"Or maybe our involvement was part of some screwed up causality loop and we were always mixed up in it," Sam suggested.

"Dude, you're making my head hurt," Dean groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, can we just leave this at 'we don't know for sure' and move on?"

"Move on to what?" Sam asked indulgently.

"Alice has family in Arkansas," Dean explained, showing Sam the pizza ad. "Ellen says they were looking for her a while ago. Maybe they know something."

"Alice never mentioned having family in Arkansas," Sam frowned, reading Dean's scrawled notes.

"Sam, you practically had to pull her teeth out to get her to tell you her favorite color," Dean pointed out. "She wasn't exactly an open book."

"Not to me, anyway," Sam shot back.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Sam said quickly. "So, your plan is what, to just... show up at their doorstep and start asking questions?"

"Pretty much," Dean replied, leaning back on the bed.

"Dean..."

"What?"

"This might not be such a good idea," Sam said carefully.

"Why not?"

"Look, I know Alice wasn't big on sharing, but... something just feels wrong about her never... mentioning these people," Sam said, struggling to put his gut feeling into words. "I mean, why didn't she ever go to them for help? After her grandmother died, she was living on her own for like, two years before we met her."

"Your point is...?" Dean pressed.

"We have no idea what we're walking into here," Sam explained. "What if these people were too crazy for Alice to handle? Is that really something we want to walk into?"

"You know, it could just as easily have gone the other way," Dean pointed out. "Maybe Alice wasn't welcome there."

"I don't know," Sam said dubiously.

"That's the point, Sam! We don't know! We don't know jack and we never will unless we go looking for answers."

"Why do you need answers so bad anyway, Dean?" Sam pushed. "What was Alice to us anyway? She was using us the whole time we were with her, Dean! She would have thrown us into the meat grinder without a second thought!"

"She wouldn't have!" Dean snapped. He knew Alice would have claimed otherwise had she been present, but he also knew that she would have been lying.

"What the hell, man?! Why are you acting so weird?" Sam yelled in frustration. "I mean, you're acting like... like..."

Suddenly, the pieces clicked into place.

"Like what?" Dean demanded.

"Like she... like you..."

Sam trailed off, a memory popping into his head unbidden. One he had almost forgotten.

Just before they got to Bisbee, after the incident with the police, Sam had woken before either Alice or Dean. He stretched, and turned to wake them up, but the sight that greeted him had given him pause. Smith was nestled against Dean's side, and one of his arms was draped over her limply.

Sam had woken them, made some joke about snugglebears, and not given it a second thought.

Until now.

"Were you and Alice..." again, Sam wrestled with words, trying to find the right ones. "Did you two... what were... Dean, did you...?"

At a loss for words, Sam settled for gesturing with his hands and fixing Dean with a look of quizzical horror.

"Did I what?" Dean demanded. He knew what Sam was asking, but he was going to make him say it.

Sam was assaulted by another memory.

_'You know, if she were a little older, I'd be hitting on her so hard.'_

"Dean, tell me you weren't screwing around with Alice," Sam forced himself to say.

"No, I wasn't 'screwing around' with Alice," Dean growled. "But it's real nice to know you think so highly of me, Sam. Really flattering."

"But she meant something to you," Sam pressed.

Dean didn't reply, but Sam could tell his silence wasn't a denial. Sam's jaw dropped, and his eyebrows shot up .

"Wow, dude, that's... that's just..."

"Yeah, I already know it's fucked up," Dean snapped.

"It is," Sam confirmed.

"I know! Can you just not mentio-"

"That's not what I was gonna say though," Sam interrupted his brother.

"What, then?!"

"That's why you didn't want to leave," Sam said, a hint of a challenge in his tone that dared Dean to refute him. "All that stuff about having one-up on the yellow-eyed demon... that was just to convince me to stay. You wanted to stay because of Alice."

Dean dragged his hands down his face slowly, trying to formulate his response. Sam didn't say anything, and the silence stretched on between them.

"Look," Dean finally spoke, "I have to know what happened to her, okay?"

Another long moment passed before Sam slowly nodded.

"Yeah, I... I get it," he said. "So. Next stop Arkansas?"

"Pretty much."

"And what if they don't have any answers for you?" Sam asked.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Dean replied.

* * *

"Dude, I'm telling you, that was our exit!"

Sam turned the map over on the dashboard, examining the stretch of I40 along which he and Dean were driving.

"Dean, that's not even an exit!" Sam exclaimed, jabbing at the map in frustration. "It's another stupid farm road."

So far, Dean had turned off onto four dead end dirt roads,and none of the bogus detours had done anything to deter him from repeating the cycle of pointlessness.

"Whatever you want to call it, that's the one we're looking for," Dean insisted, pulling into a turn-around.

"Yeah, and so were the last three," Sam said pointedly. "Dean, we don't even know what we're looking for!"

"I'm telling you, this is it!" Dean said stubbornly.

Sam groaned and gave up. Dean got them onto the highway heading in the opposite direction and then turned them around again a few miles down the road. He slowed as they approached the small side road.

"This looks exactly like the last four," Sam complained as they turned onto the unpaved track.

"Not exactly," Dean argued. "Look, this one goes into a forest instead of a field."

"I'm sure that's a sign that we're getting warm," Sam said sarcastically.

"Gee Sam, don't be so optimistic," Dean joked. "You might pull something."

"Uh-huh."

They drove down the road for a few minutes in silence, before something up ahead caught their attention.

"Dean, look," Sam said, pointing out the windshield.

"A gate," Dean commented as they approached a looming set of metal gates.

They got closer and the gates got bigger.

"Holy," Dean said, letting the Impala roll to a stop a few feet in front of the gates. They must have been fifteen feet high and were set into a massive concrete wall that stretched at least an acre in either direction. Twenty feet of bare land lay between the wall and the forest edge.

"Think this is it?" Sam asked.

"No, I think this is probably just more farmers," Dean snarked. "So now what do we do? Go up and knock?"

"Something like that," Sam said.

"Okay. Go on."

"What? No way!" Sam protested. "This whole thing was your idea!"

"Okay, okay!" Dean said, opening the Impala door. "I mean, I'll go get their attention if you're too scared."

"Shut up," Sam rolled his eyes.

Dean approached the gates on foot. As he got closer, he could see intricate symbols etched into the metal, as well as the base of the wall.

"Who even has a wall like this anymore?" Dean wondered aloud as he stood before the gates. "What's wrong with a fence? A nice, see through, chain-link fence."

He raised his fist to knock but quickly realized how ridiculous he looked. The gates towered over him. They weren't going to open for a knock.

Instead of banging on the gates, Dean examined them. They appeared to be constructed of iron and were banded with something that looked suspiciously like silver.

A mechanism mounted on the wall just beside the gate caught Dean's attention.

"Buzzer," he commented to himself. "Classy."

He pressed the button.

"Hello?" he asked into the speaker. He let the button up and waited.

After a minute, static crackled through the speaker.

"Mathias?" came a woman's voice. "That was quick."

Dean waited for the static to cut off before responding.

"Uh... I'm not Mathias," he said. "My name is Dean Winchester. I'm, uh... I'm looking for the Smith family?"

He let the button up, but there was a long pause before the woman replied.

"State your business," she said, her tone stiff and formal.

"Uh... I'm trying to find an Alice Smith," Dean said.

"What's your business with her?" the woman demanded.

Dean's hopes rose a little.

"We're, uh... old friends," he explained. "I haven't heard from her in a while. I just want to make sure she's okay. Is she in there?"

"What did you say your name was?"

"Dean Winchester."

"Please hold."

Another long silence.

"You're not on the guest list," she finally snapped.

"Look, if Alice is in there, I'm sure she'll vouch for me, or something," Dean said.

"Really?"

"Really."

"I hope for your sake that's true," the woman said. "We'll receive you at the guest entrance."

"Great," Dean said. "Uh, where's that?"

"Follow the wall going west. You can't miss it," the woman replied shortly.

"Okay, uh... thanks," Dean said.

He waited a moment, but the woman didn't speak again, so he headed back to the car.

"What happened?" Sam asked as Dean climbed back into the Impala.

"We have to find the guest entrance," Dean replied.

"What?" Sam frowned.

"Some chick on the comm told me to go west along the wall, and that we couldn't miss it," Dean explained.

"Weird," Sam said as they turned onto the even smaller dirt road that wound around the wall.

They drove for about an acre, before the wall turned sharply. Around the corner, was a parking lot.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Sam muttered.

"More and more curious," Dean corrected him smugly, happy to be the one who was right for once.

"Dean, it's a reference to Alice in Wonderland," Sam said, rolling his eyes.

"I... I know. I knew that," Dean shot back lamely.

"Sure."

They rolled onto the asphalt and parked in one of about ten empty spaces. A lone streetlight stood forlornly in the middle of the lot and the Impala was the only car in sight. Bordered by the woods and the wall, the parking lot seemed out of place to say the least.

"I'm guessing that's the guest entrance," Dean said, nodding toward an iron door set into the wall. It was a regular-sized, eight by four foot door, but seemed tiny in comparison to the front gates and the wall around it.

Sam and Dean approached the door and knocked.

A second later, a slot opened at eye level. Bright green eyes examined them over suspiciously.

"Names?" came a gruff voice.

"I'm Dean Winchester, this is my brother Sam," Dean said. "The lady at the main gate sent us back here."

"Right. Tell me, what line of work are you fellas in?" the man asked.

"Uh... we..." Dean's mind raced as he tried to decide what to say.

"We hunt," Sam replied decisively.

The eyes flicked between Sam and Dean appraisingly.

"You will surrender your arms before entering," the man said.

Another, wider slot opened and a tray slid out. Sam and Dean shared an uncomfortable glance.

"You either walk in here without weapons, or I lock this door up and call it a good day," the man threatened.

Unhappily, Dean brought his gun out and placed it on the tray. Sam followed his example reluctantly. The eyes examined the weapons.

"I'm supposed to believe that's all?" the man asked, almost sounding amused.

Dean growled quietly, but started shedding knives, none the less. By the time he and Sam were done, the tray contained five knives in addition to their guns.

"Satisfied?" Dean asked.

The tray disappeared into the door and both slots snapped shut. A moment later, the door was unbolted and swung outward.

"Come on in," the man said.

Sam and Dean stepped into a small cement room lined with lockers and dimly lit by a single fluorescent panel that ran across the ceiling. Two doors led out of the room, and both were closed. There were two men in the room, one by the door and another standing at attention in a corner with a rifle. He was dressed entirely in black, and regarded Sam and Dean severely. The man at the door, green-eyes, wore a black shirt and baseball cap, grey cargo pants and bright blue flip flops that seemed out of place in an outfit that was otherwise very reminiscent of military garb.

"So," said blue flip-flops as he closed the door and bolted it. "I hear you're looking for someone."

"Yeah," Dean replied. "Alice Smith. Do you know her?"

Flip-flops shrugged. "Hard to say. All these Smiths start to look the same if you're locked up with them long enough."

A frowned flashed across the other man's face.

"So what, you're not a Smith?" Sam asked.

Flip-flops shrugged again. "Smith by blood, just not by name," he replied.

"Dixon, our job isn't to have a heart-to-heart with these mooks," the other man said. "Let's just get this over with."

"Right, right, fine," Dixon said. "So, Len, you know an Alice Smith?"

"Nope," Len replied.

"Alright. We'd better take this to the old lady," Dixon said.

"Seriously?!" Len demanded. "You want to march outsiders in front of her?"

"Why not?"

"They came here armed to the teeth," Len pointed out. "There's no way they can't be classed as dangerous."

Dixon snorted derisively.

"Len, relax," he said. "I'll be there, Kay'll be there, plus at least ten others. She's never alone, right? And anyway, it's not like she couldn't kill them in five seconds flat if they mess with her."

Len still didn't look happy, but Dixon was already leading the way out of the door on the right. Sam and Dean followed him outside, blinking as their eyes re-adjusted to the light. They were inside the wall. They had just emerged from a low, unremarkable concrete building that ran along the length of the wall.

"What'd you say your names were?" he asked.

"Sam and Dean Winchester," Sam provided.

"Alright, Winchesters, hear ye, hear ye," Dixon said. "Everyone here is basically paramilitary and paranoid as all hell. With the exception of me. I'm cool as a cucumber. Anyway, follow my lead, keep your heads down, don't make too much noise and you should be fine."

"That's cool," Dean started. "But, uh... who are you taking us to see?"

"Greta Smith," Dixon replied easily. He turned through another door, and this one lead out into the sunlight. "She's like... the matriarch around here. All the little Smith duckies follow her like she's the sun and moon."

Dean thought he detected a note of disdain in Dixon's voice, but didn't question him further.

Inside of the wall, it was bustling. Cement walkways wove between buildings of varying shapes, sizes and designs. Some were houses, others resembled bunkers, and some warehouses. People hurried past, dressed in black for the most part. Some moved on foot, some on bikes, and one or two on horseback. One woman watered her lawn in front of a three story house. Meanwhile across the walkway, two kids who couldn't have been more than ten years old wrestled in the mud as a four adults cheered them on. Dixon lead the Winchesters past the scene without sparing it a second glance.

As they kept walking, the buildings didn't gain any sense of uniformity. They passed a stable, a medical clinic, an archery range, countless residential houses, and something that Dean thought looked like a bar. He didn't have time to stop and investigate, however. His attention was immediately drawn by a thunderous roar. A few houses later, he saw a large crowd gathered around what looked like a huge batting cage. The roars were coming from there.

"What's going on over there?" Sam asked.

"I think they're dueling with chimeras," Dixon replied blithely.

"Oh, so nothing exciting," Dean said sarcastically.

"We're almost there," Dixon said, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"How many people are here anyway?" Sam asked.

"Not sure," Dixon answered. "No less than hundred, I think. That's another question for the old lady. She keeps pretty close track of that kind of stuff."

"And what, you all just live here?" Dean asked.

"Live, train, take assignment... this is our central hub," Dixon explained. "Here we are."

He rapped twice on the door of a white, single-story house trimmed with red. A black hound watched Dean intently from beneath a makeshift doghouse consisting of a single board resting against the wall next to the door. Dean ignored the animal.

The door opened and a girl in her early twenties peeked out.

"Kaydie," Dixon greeted her.

"Micheal Dixon-Smith," the girl replied, a scowl crossing her features. "I thought they were sending you out to Lebanon with Gareth's team."

"They decided May was better suited to the job," Dixon said. "Sorry to let you down."

Kaydie noticed the Winchesters.

"Who're they?" she asked, her frown deepening.

"Guests," Dixon replied. "They're here to see the old lady."

"What do they want?" she demanded, eyeing Sam and Dean with a look of distaste.

"They're looking for someone," Dixon explained. "Alice Smith."

"Never heard of her," Kaydie said. "Now buzz off."

"Ah, ah, ah, we're not here to ask you," Dixon said smugly. He shouldered past Kaydie into the house. She shot him a venomous glare, which was quickly turned on the Winchesters when they followed Dixon through the doorway.

"I'm watching you," she growled, trailing after them.

The interior of the house was richly decorated in warm auburns and browns, with the occasional splash of bright red that matched the door and outside trim. Portraits lined the walls, some of individuals, some of groups and gatherings. On a dark wood shelf, sat dozens of framed photographs. Dean stopped briefly to examine a few. In one, a man cradled a newborn baby. Another showed a gleeful boy seated behind a birthday cake.

"Keep moving," Kaydie snapped, bumping Dean impatiently.

"Ssh!" Dixon scolded from the next room over.

Dean and Kaydie filed in after Sam and Dixon, to find a large group of children crowded around a worn sofa. An old lady sat in their midst, reading from a thick book.

"Jaime read it in the window seat," she read, "bathed in the light of that cold white morning. Qyburn's words were terse and to the point, Cersei's fevered and fervent. _Come at once,_ she said. _Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once._ "

As the old woman continued to read, Dean studied her. Though wrinkled and white-haired, she looked anything but frail. Her hands were large, and strong, and her frame was athletic. She spoke softly, but firmness and conviction hid in her quiet words. Dean guessed that she was in her sixties.

"Vyman was hovering by the door, waiting," the old lady went on, "and Jaime sensed that Peck was watching too. ' _Does my lord wish to answer_?' the maester asked, after a long silence.

"A snowflake landed on the letter. As it melted, the ink began to blur. Jaime rolled the parchment up again, as tight as one hand would allow, and handed it to Peck. ' _No_ ,' he said. ' _Put this in the fire._ '"

The old lady closed the book, eliciting groans of disappointment from a few of the children.

"That felt like a long one," The old lady said. "I'd imagine some of you are nearly late for lunch. Go on. Out with you! Clean up, eat, and I'll see you in training later."

The kids trickled out past Sam, Dean, Dixon and Kaydie. Two of the younger ones hugged the old lady before leaving.

"Greta," Dixon greeted the old lady.

"Micheal," Greta acknowledged with a smile. "Guests?"

"These are Sam and Dean Worcestershire," Dixon told her, pointing to them in turn.

"Winchester," Sam corrected him.

"Hmm," Greta hummed, looking them over. "Hunters. I've heard of them. Second generation restarts from the Campbell camp, if I'm not mistaken."

Sam and Dean exchanged a confused glance.

"They're here looking for someone," Micheal informed her.

"Well, I'll be happy to help," Greta said. "After Dean hands over the knife, obviously."

"What?" Dean said, alarmed. Behind him, Kaydie drew a gun.

"Kaydie, put that away!" Greta scolded her. "Now!"

"He came in here armed!" Kaydie hissed. "What, you didn't search him, Dixon?"

"They surrendered a pile of weapons at guest gate!" Dixon protested. "I didn't think it was humanly possible to have more than three pieces five spades on you at once!"

"Amateur!" Kaydie scowled at him.

"Both of you calm yourselves," Greta said, still perfectly at ease. She held her hand out to Dean. "Come then, before you give poor Kaydie a heart attack. The knife in the ankle sheath."

Reluctantly, Dean bent over and cautiously drew the blade to which Greta was referring. The tension in the room was palpable as he handed it hilt-first to Greta. She took it and gave Dean a reassuring smile.

"Why don't you boys have a seat?" she said, gesturing to the couch across from her. "Kaydie, you too. You're always on edge. How you haven't dropped dead already from high blood pressure, I have no idea."

"Nanna, he brought a _knife_ in here," Kaydie hissed as Sam and Dean sat. She remained standing defiantly.

"And you brought a gun," Greta said dismissively. "I wouldn't walk into a place like this naked either," she assured Dean.

"How'd you know I had the knife?" Dean asked.

"I've been playing this game for a very long time," Greta replied simply. "Can I offer either of you a cup of coffee?"

"Sure," Sam said.

Dean nodded in acceptance.

"Bring our guests something to drink," Greta ordered Kaydie. Grudgingly, she stalked out of the room.

"Now," Greta started, setting the knife on the coffee table, "Who are you two looking for?"

"Alice Smith," Sam replied.

"I know three Alice Smiths," Greta replied. "It's a family name. You'll have to be more specific. Who were her parents?"

Dean opened his mouth to reply, before realizing that he had no idea who Alice's parents were.

"She was raised by her grandmother," Dean offered.

"Grace Smith," Sam put in.

Dean shot him a surprised glance, but Greta spoke before he could ask how Sam knew that.

"Ah," Greta said slowly. "In that case, I know exactly who you're talking about."

"Is she here?" Dean asked anxiously.

"No," Greta said flatly. Her expression darkened. "How do you two know Grace's granddaughter?"

"We... worked with her for a while," Dean said carefully. "The circumstances were kind of complicated."

"I'd imagine so," Greta said dryly. "Did they involve time travel by any chance?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "How did you know?"

"Grace's time-hopping stunts caused no small amount of trouble for me and mine," Greta said, bitterness and something close to anger seeping into her tone. "A decade later, I'm still dealing with the fallout from her indulgence. Or you could call it a century. Or one year. It all depends on what you call the start of their... escapades."

Greta took a moment to collect herself as Kaydie came back and handed out mugs of coffee.

"But I suppose you aren't interested in any of that," Greta told the Winchesters. "You just want to find Grace's girl. Alice."

"Do you know where she is?" Dean asked.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Greta said. "But what you really want to know isn't where she is. You'll want to know what happened to her."

"What's that?" Sam pressed.

"Alice Smith died in December of 1997," Greta said.

Her words hit Dean like a ton of bricks. The room went silent as he and Sam processed that information.

"How?" Dean finally asked.

"She was killed by a demon," Greta replied.

"Let me guess," Dean said, pain and anger apparent in his tone. "Some black-eyed bitch riding Alice's sister."

"Watch your mouth!" Kaydie snapped.

"Kay, give the guy a break," Dixon said from the doorway.

Greta nodded gravely in confirmation of what Dean already knew.

"Grace was my sister," Greta started. "We had a... falling out, a long, long time ago. She left with her daughter. I hadn't heard from her in nearly thirty years when I went looking for her granddaughters. I already knew Grace was dead at that time. One of my deepest regrets is never reconciling with her. I thought that maybe I could right things... just a little, if I reconnected with her granddaughters. But by then, it was already too late, even for that."

"I'm sorry," Sam said.

Grace smiled thinly.

"What happened to the demon?" Dean pressed.

"Dean," Sam cautioned.

"Sam, I have to know!" Dean growled. "What happened to it?"

"It disappeared," Greta said. "We tried to track it down, but it knew our methods too well. Covered its tracks perfectly."

"Do you have any more questions?" Kaydie asked sharply.

"Dean?" Sam asked. Dean shook his head numbly.

"If not, then it's high time you moved along," Kaydie said bitingly.

"Don't be rude!" Greta scolded her. "If you boys like, you're welcome to stay for lunch."

"Thanks, but we should be going," Sam declined. In spite of Greta's politeness, he got the feeling that she didn't want them hanging around. "Thank you for seeing us."

"You're welcome," Greta replied. "Dixon will see you out."

Dean was silent and brooding as Dixon lead them through the streets. They reclaimed their weapons at the guest gate before leaving. Dean didn't spare the Smith compound a second glance as the heavy iron door clanged shut behind them.

"What are you thinking, Dean?" Sam asked as they got into the Impala.

"Nothing," Dean snapped.

"That's a lie," Sam said gently. "Come on, talk to me, man."

"What do you want me to say, Sam?" Dean demanded. "You wanna have a nice little heart to heart? Light a candle?"

"If that'll help you get through this, sure," Sam shot back.

"There's nothing to get through," Dean said dismissively as he started driving.

"That's not true," Sam said insistently. "Two days ago you were confessing that you had something with Alice. Now you find out she's dead and I'm supposed to believe you're not going through anything?"

Dean didn't reply for a long time. Sam had almost given up when he finally spoke.

"She's dead because of us," Dean said. "Because of me."

"What-"

"If we stayed, Alice would still be alive right now," Dean growled.

"Dean, you don't know that!"

"Doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does!" Sam insisted. "If you're gonna blame someone, how about Loki? He's the one who sent us back when we were both ready to stay!"

Dean didn't respond, so Sam went on.

"Or how about Ruby, the one who actually killed Alice? I'd say she deserves at least a little blame!"

"Okay, I got the point! I'm completely absolved," Dean snapped sarcastically.

"Yeah, Dean, you are," Sam said firmly. "Look, you do whatever you have to do to work through this. But don't pretend there's nothing to work through, and for crying out loud will you not blame yourself for once!"

Again, Dean fell silent and this time, Sam let him be.

* * *

That night Dean slept fitfully, despite of the fact that he and Sam had checked into a hotel room and for the first time in a while, he had an entire bed to himself. His dreams were disjointed and dark, and he kept jerking back to consciousness before he could fall asleep entirely.

When he finally did drift off, he felt like he was only under for a few seconds. Just long enough to hear Alice's voice in his head.

_"Animam ad animam, cor ad cor, tenebrae ad tenebrae. Meum dolor est tuum."_

Dean dreamed of the quick flash of a knife and six sharp, slashing pains in his arms. His eyes flew open, but the pain didn't vanish. In the darkness, he could feel wet, sticky warmth on his forearms.

Alarmed, he sat up quickly and turned the light on to find his shirt sleeves soaked with blood.

"What the-"

Grimacing, he rolled his sleeves up to find the three cuts on his left arm gaping at him, bleeding steadily. He didn't need to check his right arm to know that its cuts had been re-opened as well.

"Dean? What's going on?" Sam asked groggily from the other bed.

"Nothing," Dean assured him, switching the light off quickly. "Just a bathroom run."

Dean tore the case from one of his pillows and pressed it against the cuts on each of his arms as he made his way to the bathroom.

Dean stopped the bleeding and bandaged the wounds, lost in thought the whole time. When he finished cleaning himself up, he grabbed a towel and covered the worst of the blood on the bed before settling in again. Finally, his mind quieted and he started to feel drowsy.

As he fell asleep, his fingers absently found their way to his right shoulder. The gunshot wound and overlaying burn Alice had dealt him were not yet completely healed. Just below that, though he couldn't feel it, was his anti-possession tattoo. Along with the Torxing marks, Dean realized they were relics of his time in 1992. Painful reminders of everything that had happened in the last few weeks.

It wasn't fair how many different ways Alice had left her mark on him, how impossible she had made it for him to forget her.


	12. Lost Soul, Linger

**One Year Later**

* * *

"But I already told the police, I don't know anything," Natalie said.

Sam and Dean snagged the woman outside her house on her way to work. Natalie Riguel was a maid who tended to the houses of the well-to-do in Dalerton, Missouri. Along with her son and husband, she lived in a modest home in a neighborhood which was absurdly overgrown with ivy. The plants aggressively climbed the fences separating houses, crept over the cracked sidewalk, and covered trees so completely that they looked like writhing green pillars. Their branches stretched across the road to touch and intertwine and the ivy growing on and between them formed a canopy that the sun could not penetrate.

Beneath the thick emerald ceiling, the air was humid and even in the gloomy shade, it was unbearably hot. Fog lay in a stagnant blanket about Mrs. Riguel and the Winchester's feet, obscuring the sidewalk upon which they stood. Dean shifted uncomfortably in his suit, glancing longingly at the Impala which sat parked no more than five feet away on the street. The car was off at the moment, but the cool of the air conditioner Dean had been running continuously for the past three days would still linger within it.

"We know, we read your statement," Sam was saying. "We thought maybe you would have remembered something. Anything unusual? Maybe something you didn't feel comfortable sharing with the police?"

"No, i-it's just like I told them," Natalie insisted repetitively. "I don't know what more I can tell you."

Dean and Sam had arrived in Dalerton two days ago after a Tommy Gorder, a teacher, killed his wife the previous Friday, then showed up to work with a shotgun. He shot two teachers and eight students, three fatally. When it was over, the cops found him naked in a supply closet. The case screamed shapeshifter to the Winchesters, but they also found EMF spikes all over the school and the teacher's home. Saturday, while the Winchesters were still digging into the first incident, another man went off the rails. Dalerton's mayor invited his former campaign manager out to lunch and shot him in the restaurant. The police found the mayor the same way they found the teacher, bound, gagged and stripped in a closet of his home.

A classic shifter move, but the Winchesters were once again confounded by strong EMF readings at the mayor's house and the restaurant. One set of unexpected EMF readings could be written off as a fluke; two pointed to foul play on the part of a spirit. At this point, neither of them knew what to think. From what they could tell, there was nothing connecting the campaign manager to the school shooting either. They had no solid theory and were running low on leads.

"Are the FBI working with the Dalerton PD?" Natalie ventured nervously.

"We're launching a separate investigation," Sam said quickly. The last thing they needed was for people to start calling up the Dalerton Police Department, putting Sam and Dean on their radar. "You're absolutely certain there isn't anything else you can tell us? The smallest detail could make a huge difference, no matter how weird it might seem."

"No," Natalie said, shaking her head vehemently. "Like I keep saying, I didn't go in to work that day. I have Saturdays off and I was at the park with my son and husband."

"And there wasn't anything out of the ordinary going on around the time the mayor..." Dean trailed off, unsure how to put it delicately enough to keep the woman coherent. Red-eyed and frail, she looked like she would probably burst into tears and become completely unhelpful at the slightest mention of what the mayor had done. Not that she was being all that helpful at the moment anyway.

Natalie sniffled, but managed to keep from crying.

"No, nothing at all," she whimpered. "Mayor Umtin... he just always seemed like such a good man..."

"We heard he was a devout christian," Sam said.

Natalie nodded.

"Our families went to the same church. That's one of the reasons he hired me... he wanted his household filled with god-fearing people."

She wiped her eyes hastily and cleared her throat.

"I-I really have to get going," she said apologetically, opening her car door. "I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help to you, agents."

"Don't worry about it," Dean said. He handed her a business card. "Give us a call if you think of anything."

"I will," Natalie promised, taking the card.

Sam and Dean watched as she drove away.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Dean said. "She was our last solid lead."

"No corrections to be made," Sam sighed. At his side, Dean undid his tie, took off his suit jacket and loosened his collar, panting.

"Does that mean we can head back to the room and get out of these stuffy suits?" Dean asked.

"For now," Sam conceded.

"Gah," Dean groaned, making a beeline for the Impala. "Quick, turn on the AC. I'm melting."

"You're not driving?" Sam asked, noting that Dean had gone to the passenger side.

"Can't drive, I'm about to pass out from heat exhaustion," Dean whined, tossing Sam the keys.

"Come on," Sam teased. "It's not _that_ hot."

"Says Mr. Iced coffee," Dean shot back.

"Hey, I asked if you wanted one."

"Yeah, right!"

"It's not my fault you were too busy air drumming Metallica to pay attention to what I was saying," Sam japed.

"Hey, I was in the zone, okay?" Dean said defensively.

Sam rolled his eyes as he turned the key in the ignition, ignoring the almost sexual sound of satisfaction Dean made when cool air blasted from the vents.

"So, now what?"

"Now we dig," Sam said. "There has to be a connection between the mayor and Gorder. I'll drop you off at the motel, so you can start looking into Umtin."

"Drop me off?" Dean questioned. "Where are you going?"

"Gorder worked at a hardware store," Sam explained. "I'm going to talk to his co-workers."

Dean hummed in response and Sam glanced over to see him nodding off.

"Dude, what is up with you?" Sam demanded, punching his shoulder just hard enough to rouse him.

"Nothing's up," Dean said, straightening in his seat. "I'm just tired is all."

"Maybe you should get some sleep before you start looking into the mayor," Sam suggested. "You look like crap. Did you get any sleep at all last night?"

"Yeah... an hour or two," Dean said.

"And the night before that?" Sam pressed.

"Same."

"Dean, when was the last time you slept more than two hours straight?" Sam demanded.

"Uh..." Dean reflected on the past two or three weeks, filled with regret that he had clued Sam in to his sleeping problem. "A few days ago," he lied. "This case has just uh... just been keeping me up."

"Well you're no good to anyone passing out," Sam said pointedly. "Get some shuteye while I'm gone and we'll check out the mayor together when I get back."

"There's a plan I can get on board with," Dean agreed.

* * *

The girl looked around the room currently rented to 'federal agents' Dean 'Murdoch' and Sam 'Bulwin'. They couldn't have been here for more than two days, but their presence showed. A large leather jacket was slung over the back of a chair, the wastebaskets were full of candy wrappers, and a box containing a half-eaten meat lovers special pizza sat on the table. Not the most slovenly of scenes, but enough to make her cringe a little.

A quick look under the bed revealed a large black duffel bag, which she didn't bother going through. She knew what she would find and she didn't need to risk running into the wrong metal.

She bent over the bed closest to the window and sniffed the pillow. The scent that greeted her was sweat and dirt and something distinctly masculine. She drew back, wrinkling her nose.

She made her way to the bathroom, not bothering to turn the light on as she looked around. The shower didn't look to have been used recently, which would explain the stink on the pillow.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of a door opening. She peeked out from the bathroom in time to see a man in a suit switching on the air conditioner. Even from behind, she recognized him immediately.

"Dean Winchester," she breathed, a smile creeping onto her face.

He turned and made his way to the sink, but didn't notice her, despite the fact that she was doing nothing to hide her presence. She took a good look at him as he approached. The first thing that struck her was how tired he looked. And hot. His white suit shirt was drenched in sweat. Aside from the dark circles under his eyes, however, he looked exactly as he had when last she'd seen him.

Dean bent over the sink, practically moaning in relief as he splashed water over his face. The girl rolled her eyes. He was an idiot for not noticing her sooner and the burden now fell to her to announce herself without giving him a heart attack.

Before she could make a move, he straightened and caught sight of her in the mirror. His eyes locked onto hers and he froze for a long moment, she assumed with shock.

Smiling, she raised her hand to wave. Her motion triggered a violent reaction from Dean. He snatched the gun from the waistband of his pants and whipped around. Her reaction was more knee-jerk than anything else, a reflex hard-coded into her by a lifetime of training. She grabbed his arm and twisted it to the side, putting all her weight behind the move and driving him to the ground.

"Dean, calm down," she said, trapping his gun-hand with a foot.

Dean just grunted and his hand flew toward her leg. She didn't have time to dodge the blow, but it didn't matter. There was nothing material for his hand to hit. After his failed punch, she quickly immobilized him.

"Dean, it's me!" she said, annoyance seeping into her tone as he struggled against her hold.

Finally, he stopped fighting and took a second to look at her in the light. The expression of shocked recognition that spread across his face was almost comical.

"Alice!" he gasped.

Alice grinned as she relaxed her hold on him and straightened.

"Hi Dean," she said, staring down at him. "It's been a while hasn't it?"

He gaped up at her until she offered him a hand.

"Alice," he repeated, taking her hand. She pulled him to his feet, but he didn't let her hand go after he was up. Her eyebrows shot up as he squeezed her hand and looked her over.

"I thought, um... I heard you..." Dean struggled to find the right words. "Aren't you dead?" he finally blurted.

"Define dead," Alice said carefully, pulling her hand from his grasp.

"Dead like Ruby killed you in 1997, dead," Dean clarified.

"That happened," Alice admitted.

"Huh," Dean said. "You're uh... you're awfully corporeal for a hallucination. Or a dead person, for that matter."

He poked her in the chest and she frowned.

"I'm actually here," she said, swatting his hand away as if to prove the point.

"But you did die?"

"Mmhmm."

"Okay. Not to be rude or anything, but why are you here then?" Dean asked.

"It's... a long story," Alice sighed. "Involving a devil's gate, an unfortunate run-in with a reaper, an Anubian priest and a lot of running."

"A devil's gate?" Dean repeated, a chill running down his spine as the pieces began to fall into place. "How long ago was all this?"

"A few months," Alice replied, confirming Dean's suspicions. Devil's gates were a rare phenomenon. The chances that Alice was talking about a different gate than the one he and Sam had closed in Wyoming were slim to none.

"The gate opened, and I, being the bright opportunist I am, used it to escape the afterlife. But that's not really important."

Dean frowned, about to protest the supposed irrelevance of that information, but Alice went on without waiting for his response.

"I'm here because I need your help," Alice continued. "As I'm sure you know, I'm not supposed to be here. I already mentioned the reaper that's on my ass."

"There's a reaper on your ass?" Dean repeated.

"Yeah, Lost Souls Recovery Unit," Alice snorted. "Talk about a crappy job. I would almost pity the guy if he wasn't such a douche. Anyway, he's tracking me using some trail souls leave when they're not packed in meat. That priest I mentioned earlier gave me some pointers on how to throw him off my scent, but even so... I can't run forever. I need a body ASAP, or my ass is getting dragged back to eternal unrest."

"Hold on, back up a minute," Dean said, struggling to process what she was saying. He was way too tired for this. "So, you died. Got that part. Then you climbed out of the afterlife through a Devil's gate and now you're a ghost."

"Eh, lost soul," Alice interjected. "There's some technical difference."

"Right. And you want me to help you how?" Dean asked.

"I need a body," Alice repeated.

"Meaning?"

Alice threw her hands up in exasperation.

"I don't know how much clearer I can make it," she exclaimed. "A body! A host! Something to wrap up in so my stinky soul trail doesn't lead the reaper right to me!"

"You're talking about possession," Dean realized.

"Yes," Alice conceded. "That's a good word for it. I need to possess something."

"So let me get this straight. You're planning on taking over some poor shmuck's body and you want my help to do it?" Dean demanded in disbelief.

"Before you go off the rails, hear me out," Alice said, her tone almost pleading. "There's a way I can do this without ruining anyone's life. Notice I said some _thing_ not, some _one_."

"You lost me again," Dean said.

"Of course I did," Alice sighed. "Look, you guys are hunting a shifter, right?"

"We are?"

"Yeah, I thought you would have figured that out by now."

"We considered that, but there was an EMF..."

Dean trailed off, a piece of the puzzle clicking into place.

"You left the EMF trail at the school and the mayor's house," Dean accused. "You were over there poking around, weren't you?"

"Yeah, I took a look around," Alice admitted.

"Okay, so what do you know about this thing?" Dean demanded.

"Everything," Alice replied. "Who it is, where he lives, what he eats for breakfast."

"How?" Dean pressed.

"The mayor knew him," Alice explained easily. "One of the perks of my condition is that getting into his jail cell to talk to him was a cakewalk."

"That's not what the mayor told the cops."

"The mayor told the cops what I told him to tell them," Alice said. "I need this kid and he's no good to me in a jail cell. I explained to the good mayor that I could clear his name, but only if I could get to the shifter. He was more than willing to help me out."

"So... you want... to... possess the shifter?" Dean asked slowly, working through it in his mind as he spoke.

"Exactly," Alice said with a smirk. "It takes care of everyone's problems. Once I have control of that freak, I can shift back into the mayor and vindicate him... somehow. I'll admit, I haven't quite worked that part out yet. But the shifter meat will throw the reaper off my scent, plus the shifter won't be able to hurt anyone else. Wins all around."

Dean could see a lot wrong with this plan, but he kept his mouth shut for the moment.

"Okay, but what do you need my help for then?" he asked instead. "If you already know who the shifter is and where he lives, why not just go... do your ghost possession thing?"

Alice pursed her lips, and reached around to rub the back of her neck, a look that came close to embarrassment settling over her features.

"Well... I, um... kind of already tried that," Alice said sheepishly.

"So how come you're not riding the son of a bitch?" Dean pressed.

"He figured out that ghosts don't like salt," she allowed.

Dean frowned.

"How?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," Alice said. "Look, I just need help getting to him. Honestly, you and Sam are the greatest stroke of luck I've had since the devil's gate opened. Being corporeal and all, I thought you could help me subdue him long enough to hop in."

She smiled up at him with the satisfied air of someone with a foolproof plan. Dean sighed, preparing to let her down.

"Look, Alice..."

"What?" she asked, her face falling when she heard his tone.

"Nothing against you," Dean said sincerely. "But what's dead should stay dead."

Alice's jaw set and her eyes flashed. The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees and Dean shivered, wondering how big of a mistake he'd just made.

"You know, there was a time when I would have agreed with you," Alice started, her tone low and level. She held his eyes, her gaze boring into him intensely. "Even now, I won't try to argue that point. I know better than most that everything has it's time. I know mine is over."

Alice advanced on him and he took a step away from her. It did no good. Alice flickered and in an instant, she close enough for him to feel her frigid breath.

"But I can't go back," Alice said. Her tone dropped a few more notches, but didn't become threatening. She almost sounded desperate. "I _won't_ go back down there, Dean."

A chill ran through Dean that had nothing to do with the sudden cold in the room.

"You were in hell," he realized.

She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving his.

"The rumors don't do it justice, Dean," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. "The fire... the ice... every evil son of a bitch I ever exorcised. And the pain, always the pain... there aren't words."

She grabbed his arm and pushed his sleeve up. Her grip was vice-like and freezing on his wrist, raising goosebumps on his skin.

"You remember torxing," she breathed.

Her touch moved up his arm, thumb brushing over the gashes she had left him with so long ago, now healed into angry red scars that would soon be reopened. Dean nodded in answer to her question. He had blacked out during his torxing and the demon had taken the brunt of the torture, but sometimes he felt the echoes of that pain when the marks on his arms began a fresh cycle. The agony that jolted through every fiber of his being for an instant and left him on the ground, often too incapacitated to even cry out.

Alice guided his hand to her forearm and he let her push his fingers up her sleeve. There, he could feel the deep cuts on her arm, still fresh as if they had just opened. Mirrors of his own, but earlier in the cycle of healing and reappearing.

"It's a thousand times worse down there," Alice rasped, her voice breaking as she held his eyes. "You can't imagine..."

She took a breath to steady herself, closing her eyes to fight back tears.

"Help me, Dean," she begged, her grip on his wrist tightening urgently as her eyes flew open, searching his face for an answer.

All Dean could think about was his deal. The contract that in less than a year would send him to the very hell Alice had just escaped. Suddenly, it was no longer about right and wrong. Dean had to help her, because fuck hell, fuck death, and fuck the natural order.

"I will," he promised. Maybe...

A small voice in the back of his mind whispered the what ifs. Maybe if he helped Alice, someone would help him when his time came. Maybe it would be her. Maybe somehow, someway, by some miracle he wouldn't have to...

He couldn't even think it. It didn't matter, he thought as a smile spread across Alice's features that did nothing to warm him. No one could save him. No one could help him. If they tried, Sam would pay the price. He had to remember that.

Alice leaned up and her lips brushed against his for a moment, soft and fleeting as a breeze.

"Thank you."

"I guess hunters don't let hunters get dragged to hell," Dean said, his tone lighter than he felt.

Alice chuckled at the familiar phrase.

"I honestly doubt most hunters would give a crap about anything but sending me packing," Alice joked.

"You know I could never do that to you," Dean said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "'Specially since you cool the room down way better than that piece of shit AC."

That dragged a genuine laugh from Alice. She drew away from him and took a seat at the table. She peeked into the pizza box again and sighed.

"So. What you and Sam have been doing for the past... damn, what year is it?" she asked.

"2007," Dean replied, sitting heavily on the bed.

"Ten years," she said, sounding slightly awed by the figure. "Wow."

She went silent for a long moment, gazing at the wall as she thought. Finally, she snapped her fingers.

"Ha! Just Push Play has to be out by now, right?" she crowed in satisfaction.

"That, and Honkin' on Bobo," Dean provided.

"Don't know what that is," Alice admitted. "I'll have to check it out after I get my meat. Right after I eat something, of course."

She eyed the pizza longingly, before sighing and turning her attention back to Dean.

"Screw the food and music though," she said, leaning back in her chair and putting her feet up on the table. "How have you and Sam been?"

Dean hesitated, wondering how much to tell her.

' _Oh, not too bad Alice. You know, Sam died and I sold my soul to bring him back, so now I'm headed for hell. And don't even get me started on the whole demon blood shebang. Plus, we've heard from the demon who killed you a couple times. She's still breathing though. Haven't gotten around to ganking her yet, sorry._ '

"We've been okay," Dean replied automatically.

Alice raised her eyebrows.

"That's it? Okay?" she questioned. "Come on, something exciting has to have happened to you since you last saw me. How long has it been for you anyway?"

"Two years," Dean answered.

"Wow. So you had two years that were so boring you can't think of any stories to amuse me with while we wait for Sam to get back?" Alice demanded.

At the mention of Sam, Dean pursed his lips. Alice read his expression and groaned as another issue occurred to her.

"Damn, how is Sam going to take this?" she wondered. "Think he'll be willing to help me?"

 _It'd be awfully hypocritical of him if he wasn't,_ Dean thought.

"Hard to say," Dean said instead.

"I'm not sure if he ever really warmed to me like you did," Alice mused aloud. "He put up with me and he was pretty cool most of the time. Still, I always got the feeling that he was just biding his time 'til I sent you back home."

Dean bit his lip at Alice's assessment. It all rang true enough, but the first part bugged Dean a little. _Like you did._

"What happened to you, Alice?" Dean asked abruptly. "After we left."

Alice shrugged.

"I hunted. I was hunted. I thought I'd finally won and then I died," she said shortly. It was obviously not a subject she was eager to explore. She looked Dean over and latched onto the distraction that his haggard appearance provided.

"You know, you look like hell," she informed him.

"You're the third person to tell me that today," Dean sighed.

"Trouble sleeping?"

"Guilty as charged."

"Nightmares?"

Dean hesitated and Alice nodded before he could respond.

"Comes with our line of work," she said, by way of explanation for her perception.

 _Comes with being sentenced to hell_ , Dean thought grimly.

"If you want, I'll shut my trap and you can get some shuteye while we wait," Alice offered.

Dean was exhausted, but before he could accept the offer, his attention was drawn to the door by the sound of a key turning in the lock. The door cracked open, and Sam peeked in. He frowned, and threw the door open when he saw Dean sitting up on the bed.

"What happened to you getting some sleep?" Sam demanded, blindly tossing his suit jacket toward the table. It landed on Alice's head, and Dean snickered as she sat stone still beneath it. He forced a straight face, and addressed Sam.

"I thought you were supposed to be grilling the hardware store employees," Dean said.

"The place is closed," Sam replied, placing a bag on his bed. "Most of the people who worked there had kids who were killed with the mayor shot up the school. They've all got the week off in light of the tragedy. They're at home consoling their loved ones and taking care of the funeral arrangements."

He reached into one of the bags he had brought in with him, and pulled out a pocket pie.

"Here," he said, tossing it to Dean.

Dean looked it over, and nodded in approval.

"I can live with the pocket," he said.

Behind Sam, Alice finally pulled his jacket off her head, holding it at arms length before dropping it in a heap on the floor, wrinkling her nose.

"You know, Sam," she started. "I somehow got the impression that you had better hygiene than your brother, but... whew! You need deodorant or something."

Sam's reaction was much less violent than Dean's, but no less immediate. He whipped around, and froze when he saw Alice, the blood draining from his face as she spoke.

"Alice," he said.

"You okay, Sam? You look like you've seen a ghost," Dean chuckled.

"Maybe I have," Sam replied. "We heard you died, Smith."

Alice growled quietly as she stood, but she didn't advance on Sam.

"I still don't like being called by that name," she said as she walked over to stand beside Dean. "You know, funny thing is, I heard I was dead too. Guess those reports were exaggerating a bit."

Dean raised his eyebrows at the misleading narrative, and Alice shot him a glance that told him to keep his mouth shut.

"Really? So where've you been the past decade?" Sam asked. He nodded to Dean. "He ran us halfway across the country and back looking for you."

Dean rolled his eyes. Sam's characterization of their brief search made it sound somewhat more extensive than it had actually been, though his account was technically true.

"Where I've been is my business," Alice said. "If I wanted people to find me, I wouldn't have covered my tracks so well."

"Alright," Sam conceded. "What are you doing here?"

"Why do I have to be doing anything but catching up with my two favorite hunting buddies?" Alice said innocently.

"It's been over a decade since you've seen us from your persepective, and we've been back for two years," Sam responded bitingly. "If you were going to give us a social call, you would have done it sooner. Why come around now?"

Alice sighed beleaguredly.

"Fine. I'm in town looking into all the crazy shit that's gone down over the weekend," she lied smoothly. "Then I spotted you two the other day, and followed you back here. I figured we could pool our resources on this one."

"We've got it covered," Sam said immediately.

"Sam," Dean started.

"Come on, do you even know what you're hunting?" Alice interrupted, directing the question at Sam. He floundered for a moment, before setting his jaw.

"We've got a few theories," he snapped.

"Alright, let's hear them," Alice challenged.

"Can you two just _not_?" Dean groaned, standing. "Look, Sam, Alice has figured out it's a shifter causing all the trouble. She knows where it is and everything."

"A shifter?" Sam asked dubiously. "What about the EMF?"

"Not connected," Alice said dismissively.

"So what, it's just a coincidence that we were getting off the chart EMF readings at Gorder's and the mayor's house?" Sam demanded.

"Must have been," Alice said insistently.

"That's some coincidence."

"I won't argue with you on that."

Alice held Sam's eyes defiantly, and Dean glanced between them as they stared each other down. He clapped his hands together in an attempt to dissolve the tense atmosphere.

"So. It's great to have the team back together," he said sarcastically. "Alice, since you know where the shifter's shacked up, why don't you stake the place out and keep an eye on him. I'm at least getting four hours in before we try to jump this freak. Sam, you can go with her, or stay here, or..." Dean trailed off, and shrugged. "I don't know. Go play Galaga. Look at some porn. I don't care. Any objections? Comments, questions, suggestions?"

Sam crossed his arms over his chest unhappily as Alice started for the door. She stopped at the nightstand and scribbled an address on a scrap of paper.

"The shifter's here. I'll be there too, waiting," Alice said shortly. She swept past Dean and Sam to the door. "Sweet dreams," she called over her shoulder.

"Dean," Sam started as soon as she left.

Dean shook his head vigorously and flopped down on the bed.

"I'm sleeping!" he said, pulling a pillow over his head. "Night night Sam. See you in four."

"Dean," Sam pressed.

Dean fake-snored loudly, but otherwise ignored Sam. His breathing soon evened out and before long he was genuinely sawing logs.

Sam groaned and plopped down on his bed, kicking his shoes off and letting them fly across the room to thud against the wall. He reached over to the window and closed the curtains. The day outside was gray, the sky blanketed with dark, low hanging clouds, some of which were descending to become a fog that threatened to envelop Dalerton completely. The foreboding weather fit Sam's mood.

He didn't know why Alice Smith had chosen now of all times to waltz back into his life, but her chance encounter story didn't ring true to him. She had a reason for showing up and Sam worried that trouble would come close on her heels.

Perhaps even greater trouble than he and Dean were accustomed to dealing with.


	13. Salt and Silver

Alice leaned against an ivy-covered tree across the street from Danny Brontely's house. The shifter was definitely aware of her presence. Every now and then she caught him peeking out of the front curtain at her. Alice pretended she didn't see him. She suspected that he had somewhere he wanted to be, but couldn't work up the nerve to leave his house. After all, the last time he had tried, Alice assaulted and attempted to possess him. Luckily for Danny, she was just getting the hang of ghostly things, and possession was a notch above her current abilities. Not to mention the fact that he had several Mcdonald's salt packets in his pockets.

Alice tapped her foot and let a leaf pass through her ankle in boredom. In her natural state, she may as well not have existed. It took serious concentration to make herself solid, to touch things, to let them touch her. For the first day or two after she pushed and shoved and clawed her way out of hell, she had been terrified of her own weightlessness. It felt like she could fall through the ground at any moment and sink all the way back down to the stinking, burning pit where she had been condemned to rot for the rest of eternity.

Alice shuddered at the memories of those first few days and shunned them. Instead, she turned her mind back to the problems at hand, of which she had plenty. The most pressing one, however, was the unfortunate fact that she was so ill-versed in the ghostly arts. With any luck, Danny's salt-filled coat would soon be ripped from him, leaving him open for her to possess, if only she knew how.

 _I need to practice_ , Alice thought to herself.

For now, Sam didn't know what she really wanted with the Shifter. When the time came, she would need to move quickly. If she did manage to take over the shifter's body, she still had no idea how Sam might react. He was the wild card in this game, though she was still fairly confident that he would be unable to harm her. There was the chance that death, hell, her resurrection or forces unknown may have nullified his promise not to hurt her without her express permission. Alice hoped this wasn't the case.

She would pick her bridges and cross them when she came to them. Until then, she still had almost three hours to kill and a skill to master.

Alice frowned as the light fog threatened to become heavier and more obfuscatory that it already was. She crossed the street to stand sentry on the sidewalk directly in front of Danny's house. He peeked out of the curtain a moment later. If he was alarmed by her presence, it didn't show in his expression. Nor did he withdraw immediately this time. He stared her down and she held his gaze unblinking. She got the feeling that he was sizing her up. Alice had already taken measure of Danny Brontely. He was an only child from a middle class home in a nice neighborhood where he had spent all sixteen years of his life. The kid was a straight A student with an affinity for science and a serious comic book addiction. His type, Alice wouldn't be surprised if she learned that he attributed his recently discovered shifting abilities to a radioactive chameleon bite.

The kid had a gaunt cast to him, pale skin surrounding dark, sunken eyes that shone with malice and intelligence. Dark hair hung down over his forehead and his cheekbones were prominent, while his cheeks themselves were slightly hollow. Despite his pallor and thinness, he wasn't an unattractive young man. As Alice repaid his study of her in kind, his retinas flashed ever so slightly. Anyone else would have missed the quick glint, or otherwise mistaken it for a trick of the light, but Alice spotted it right away and took note of it.

A second later, the curtain fell back into place, blocking her view of Danny.

"Excuse me."

Alice turned at the words, to see a man standing behind her.

"Can I help you with something?" he asked.

Alice frowned. She realized how conspicuous she looked, standing in front of Danny's house in such inhospitable weather. This was probably one of his neighbors.

"I'm just, uh..."

Alice trailed off, looking the man over as she realized what he was.

An opportunity.

A slow smile spread over her features.

"Practice makes perfect," she said aloud.

The man looked confused for a moment, but Alice spoke again before he could say anything.

"Hey, you don't have salt in your pockets, do you?" she asked carefully.

"What? Of course not, why would I-"

The man never got the chance to finish his sentence. Alice grabbed his wrist and he froze, an expression of shock spreading across his features when her fingers went through his wrist.

"So... do I just..."

Alice walked through the man, but that seemed to do little but unnerve him further.

"I- You- Ah, you-" the man choked, turning to face Alice again.

"Don't have a heart attack," Alice scolded him. "I just need to borrow you for a minute."

She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him toward her. For a few seconds she was actually standing inside him, but still not possessing. She stepped back and considered him.

"Maybe..."

She felt a bit silly, but never the less, attempted to jam her hand down the man's throat. After all, that was how demons did it, right?

All that accomplished was that the man gagged and coughed, in spite of the fact that she had deliberately left her hand incorporeal.

Alice growled quietly, frustration taking over.

Why wasn't anything she was doing working?

She shook the man by the shoulders and said as much aloud.

Then, suddenly, her perspective changed and she found herself gazing across the street from a few inches higher than she was accustomed to. It took a moment for her to realize what had happened. Experimentally, she raised her hands. They were big, strong hands with a simple gold wedding band around their left ring finger.

They were the man's hands.

"Yes!" Alice crowed triumphantly, her voice deep, booming and masculine. She laughed in exhilaration and realization.

"Of course," she said aloud with the man's tongue. "It's the violent emotion that does it. That's the trick. All that frustration... Oh right, poor Mr. Niue."

Vacating the man's body was much easier than entering it. He wanted Alice out and all she had to do was give in to his mental pushing. Suddenly, she was standing in front of him again while he gasped for breath and gaped at Alice like a drowning fish.

"Okay, look here!" Alice said, dropping her tone and forcing herself to look menacing despite her elation. "Promise you won't tell anyone about this, or I'll rip your intestines out and hang you upside down with them!"

The man nodded wordlessly, traumatized beyond belief. Still, it wasn't good enough.

"Say you promise!" Alice insisted, shaking him by his shoulders.

"I-I-I p-promise!" the man managed.

Alice smiled and patted him on the back.

"'Kay then, have a great day!" she said brightly.

The man stumbled away and Alice watched him go, immensely satisfied with the results of her experiment.

"What did you do to him?"

This voice was soft and low, but by no means timid. Alice turned and came face to face with Danny Brontely, mere inches from her. Alice was torn between the instinctive desire to put some distance between them and practicality, which that told her the last thing she wanted to do was look weak or frightened.

"Ditch the coat, then we'll talk," Alice said, eyeing his pockets warily. His arms were crossed over his chest now, but it would take a fraction of a second for him to toss a packet of salt at her. Alice fought back a shudder as she remembered the horrible sensation she had experienced the first time she had come into contact with salt after her return to the world of the living. The weariness, the feeling of utter vulnerability and powerlessness...

"Not a chance," Danny replied, pulling the coat around him more tightly. "Why are you still here? What do you want with me? Who are-, no, _what_ are you?"

Alice shook her head.

"I gave you my terms," she said resolutely. "Until you make a gesture of good faith, I'm not telling you anything."

Danny considered her for a long moment, then started past her. She grabbed his arm, stopping him.

"And where do you think you're going?" she asked.

"To visit a friend," Danny sneered, his hand creeping toward his pocket.

Alice noticed and grabbed his other arm, holding him stationary.

"I don't think so," Alice replied icily. "You're staying right here."

Danny laughed at her.

"You're gonna keep me here?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Good luck with that," Danny grinned.

He tried to pull her flush against him, which would bring her in contact with his salt laden pockets. Alice anticipated his move and pushed him away just in time. She dodged as Danny flung salt at her, but she didn't move quickly enough this time. Alice fell to the ground with a shriek while the world spun around her, graying around the edges as she felt herself becoming invisible and untouchable.

"Oh, god!" Alice moaned. "This is payback for all those ghosts I hunted, isn't it?"

No one replied. Alice could still see Danny as he walked away, but it was like looking through misted glass. She had to follow him. Moving in this state was so hard. It wasn't a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and letting gravity and her own momentum do the rest. She felt so light, torn between floating away and sinking into the ground. All she wanted to do was grab onto something solid to anchor herself to the world of the living.

Instead, she forced herself forward with sheer willpower, floating after Danny with all the single-minded concentration attributed to restless spirits.

* * *

Dean was woken by Sam's ringtone. His eyes snapped open as Sam stirred on the other bed and answered the call.

"Yeah? Mrs. Riguel? Whoa, whoa, calm down," Sam said, sitting up abruptly. "Tell me what happened."

Dean sat up, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"Okay, don't panic," Sam told Mrs. Riguel. "Don't leave your house, don't call anyone else. No, not even the police. Just wait, we'll be right over."

Sam snapped his phone shut, and sprang out of bed, searching for his shoes.

"What's going on?" Dean asked, standing and stretching. A glance at the clock told him it had been two hours since he fell asleep. So much for a good four hour nap.

"Mrs. Riguel's son was just kidnapped," Sam said, grabbing his black suit jacket and heading for the door. Dean followed him out, straightening his clothes as he went.

"Think the shifter did it?" Dean asked.

"Unless the kid has a secret twin, then yeah," Sam replied, handing Dean the Impala keys.

"Which means something happened to Alice," Dean said, carefully disguising the worry in his tone as he started driving.

"Or it just gave her the slip," Sam suggested.

Dean frowned.

"Maybe," he said dubiously.

"Speaking of Alice," Sam started.

"I know as much as you do," Dean lied quickly.

"So what, she just showed up out of the blue?" Sam asked suspiciously.

"Yeah, you dropped me off and there she was, skulking around in our room like a weirdo," Dean said truthfully.

"And you think she's telling the truth?" Sam asked.

"About what?"

"About why she's here. About how she just happened to be working the same case we are."

"I definitely believe that part," Dean said.

"It doesn't strike you as odd that she just happened to show up here at the same time as us?" Sam pressed.

"Stranger things have happened," Dean said carefully.

"I don't know, Dean, something smells bad about this," Sam said.

"I think you're probably smelling your own armpits there, Sammy," Dean joked.

Sam rolled his eyes, but moved on anyway.

"So, did you tell her about the deal?" Sam asked.

Dean should have been happy that Sam was done questioning Alice's story, but the subject he had changed to left little room for relief.

"No," Dean said shortly.

"Why not?"

"You know why."

"Even so, don't you think Alice might know something that can help us?" Sam pressed. "Whatever else she is, she's a master at finding loopholes. If you told her what you did-"

"Then she might start poking around trying to save me and you would get killed," Dean interrupted Sam sharply.

"Or maybe not!" Sam argued heatedly.

"That's not a chance I'm willing to take!" Dean shot back. "If anyone, including Alice, wants to tamper with this deal, they're going to have to do it over my dead, hell-crisped body."

Sam glared at him scathingly, but didn't respond. Dean wasn't quite finished though.

"And don't you dare tell her about this behind my back!" he told Sam severely. "You at least owe me that much."

Sam crossed his arms over his chest obstinately, but held his tongue.

The rest of the drive to Mrs. Riguel's house was spent in a silence that seethed with anger and the tense, unspoken feelings that lay buried beneath it. By the time they reached their destination, the fog was so thick that Dean couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him.

"We shouldn't be driving in this," Sam observed as they made their way to Mrs. Riguel's front door. Dean knocked, glancing around for all the good it did him. Even the pervasive, ever-present ivy was blocked from his view by the thick, billowing gray cloud that had stealthily descended to cover Dalerton.

The door cracked open and Mrs. Riguel peeked out. She shook violently, struggling to hold back her sobs.

"A-a-a-a..."

Mrs. Riguel took a moment to steady herself before she tried to speak again.

"A-agents," she greeted them.

"Hey, Natalie," Dean replied with a smile. "Can we come in?"

She nodded and opened the door just wide enough to grant Sam and Dean entrance. The home looked normal enough at first glance. The short front hall was well-organized and spotlessly clean. Family photos hung on the paneled walls and a long mat ran down the length of the hall.

"Mrs. Riguel, can you tell us what happened to your son?" Sam asked gently.

Natalie sobbed raggedly, tears streaming down her face from red eyes at the mention of her son.

"Maybe you should sit down," Dean suggested. He nudged Mrs. Riguel through the nearest doorway, which lead to the living room. Natalie collapsed on a couch, weeping inconsolably. Sam spied a box of tissues on the other side of the room, resting on a couchside table. He crossed the room in two long strides and brought the tissues back to Mrs. Riguel. She accepted them gratefully, and Sam and Dean waited while she sobbed into a handful of delicate white squares.

"I'm- I'm- I-I'm s-s-so s-sorr-sorry," Natalie sobbed.

"It's fine, just take your time," Sam told her soothingly.

Dean bit his lip. While Natalie took her time, lord only knew what could be happening to her son.

Apparently, Natalie was not oblivious to this. She shook her head and forced herself to stop sobbing.

"My-my s-son," she gasped, wiping her eyes vigorously. "H-he t-t-took him!"

"Who?" Dean asked.

"It l-looked like m-my son, but-but it- it... I s-swear, please, I-I know it sounds c-crazy,but-"

Natalie stopped and took a long breath to steady herself.

"We believe you," Sam assured her. "Can you tell us anything about him? The one that wasn't your son. How did you know it wasn't him? Was there some difference?"

"I-I just KNEW!" Natalie wailed. "I KNEW THAT THING WASN'T MY SON! I COULD TELL F-FROM THE L-L-LOOK ON IT'S FACE W-WHEN I-I-IT- OH GOD!"

"Shh, shh," Sam hushed her softly, stroking her shoulder awkwardly. "It's okay. Please, Mrs. Riguel, it's important. Were there any physical differences between your son and the shif- the thing that took him?"

Natalie started to shake her head, but stopped abruptly.

"He-He had these- these cuts, on his arms," Natalie said, rolling her sleeves up to indicate their placement. "Th-Three on each arm."

Sam's eyebrows shot up and his eyes flew to Dean, who immediately knew what he was thinking.

"Did, uh... Did they look something like this?" Dean asked, unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling them up to show Natalie his torxing marks.

Her eyes went wide as saucers and she cringed away from Dean.

"You- what-"

"Mrs. Riguel, did he have marks like those?" Sam pressed.

"Yes, b-but his weren't h-healed!" Natalie managed. "Wh-wh-at are- why-"

"It's a long story," Dean told her. "Look, Natalie, we're gonna find your kid, okay?"

"D-don't HURT HIM!" Natalie panicked.

"We won't," Sam assured her.

"Wh-what if you c-can't t-t-tell-"

"Oh, we'll be able to tell them apart," Dean said confidently.

"Mrs. Riguel, you need to stay here," Sam said, standing. "We'll be in touch as soon as we know something. It's very important that you don't tell anyone about what's happened. Do you understand?"

Natalie nodded, shaking more violently again as they prepared to leave. After they closed the front door behind themselves, they could hear her wailing behind them. Dean ignored her cries and turned to Sam.

"Think Alice tortured the shifter?" he asked.

Sam shrugged.

"Probably," he said. "Which begs the question, what happened? How did it get away from her?"

"Yeah, and where is she now?" Dean asked, a hint of concern creeping into his tone.

"We'll have to worry about Alice later," Sam decided. "For now, we need to figure out where the shifter and the Riguel kid are, and get to them. There's no way we're gonna be able to drive in this... soup."

"That... Winchester... Is why... you've got legs," someone panted from behind them. Dean recognized the voice and turned immediately. He could just barely make out Alice's silhouette through the fog.

"Alice?" Dean called.

As she got closer, she gained substance, appearing more solid with each step toward them. Dean wondered if the effect could be attributed entirely to the thick wall of fog around them, or if Alice was less than alright.

"What happened with the shifter?" Dean demanded.

Alice grimaced, trying to catch her breath.

"You don't look so good," Sam observed. "You run all the way here?"

"Let's just say the trip was less than a walk in the park," Alice replied. "I take it you already know about Danny's friend?"

"Who?" Dean asked.

"The shapeshifter. His name is Danny Brontely," Alice explained.

"Brontely..." Dean turned the name over in his mind, trying to work out where he'd heard it before.

"Like the mayor's former campaign manager?" Sam asked.

Dean snapped his fingers as the pieces began to click into place.

"Yeah, yeah, the one that got fired mid-election and replaced with the guy the mayor- I mean, the shifter, smoked in the restaurant."

"The reject was Danny's father," Alice confirmed.

"Is that why this Danny character went after the mayor?"

"Yeah. But look, we need to talk walking. The kid Danny took is in serious trouble. Do you two have silver on you?"

Sam and Dean both nodded and Alice held her hand out.

"I'm gonna need to borrow some," she said.

"You're hunting a shifter and you don't have any silver?" Sam asked critically.

"I had some, I don't anymore," Alice snapped. "Are you gonna give me a knife, or let me walk into this naked?"

"We have silver bullets you know," Dean said as he made his way to the Impala trunk.

"Yeah, well I like knives better," Alice replied.

"'Course you do," Dean said, handing her a sturdy, unornamented blade. Alice took it by the tip, and flipped it in her hand, getting a feel for its balance. It had good weight, but the edge was a bit worn. Alice tucked it up her sleeve carefully, its dull edge and slenderness making it an ideal wrist weapon. It wasn't a bad knife, but it was just a front. She had no intention of killing Danny Brontely, but Sam didn't know that at the moment. Plus, there was always the chance that things might not go as planned.

"So, now what?" Sam asked.

"Now we get going," Alice said.

She started off into the fog and Sam and Dean followed her closely to ensure that they didn't lose her in the haze.

"So what's with Danny and Gorder?" Dean asked of the first victim.

"Gorder was the kid's math teacher. My guess is they didn't get along."

"Don't you think that's putting it kind of mildly?" Sam said pointedly.

"Probably the same for the maid's kid," Dean realized aloud. "So what, we've got a shifter on our hands acting out revenge fantasies against everyone that ever stepped on his toes?"

"Teenagers," Alice scoffed. "Everything's a tragedy when you're Danny's age. It's not an excuse to become a serial killer."

Sam pursed his lips at the irony of that statement coming from someone who, as a teen, had found their catharsis hunting monsters.

"Alice, why did you torx the shifter?" Sam asked abruptly.

"I didn't," she replied. "But I'm guessing you wouldn't be asking unless someone already marked him up, huh?"

"Wait... if you didn't do it, who did?" Dean asked quizzically.

"Hell if I know," Alice said. "I mean, it's not exactly rocket science. If it's been done to you and you've got enough ugly shit bottled up inside, you can do it."

Dean considered that for a moment.

"So who did it to you?" he finally asked.

Alice's expression grew troubled.

"I mean, my first time it wasn't torture," she tried to explain. "That wasn't the goal, anyway. My, uh... my grandma did it to me."

"Your grandma?!" Dean demanded.

"She was just passing along the skill!" Alice scowled.

"Ok, but... that's pretty grisly," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, I mean... how old were you?" Dean asked, struggling to wrap his head around this new information.

"Ten."

Alice narrowed her eyes angrily at Sam and Dean's matching expressions of horror.

"Don't judge my grandmother!" she snapped. "You didn't know her. She never did anything without good reason!"

"Ok, but that's just..."

Dean stopped himself, swallowing his opinions of Alice's grandma. Alice clearly idolized the woman and he doubted anything he could say that would change that.

"So where are we going?" Sam asked instead.

"An abandoned house about two miles from here," Alice estimated.

"How do you know that's where he is?" Sam questioned.

"I've been tailing him ever since he left his house."

Sam frowned at that. Something didn't feel right about Alice's story.

"You were following him and you what, just let him take the Riguel kid?" he asked skeptically.

"This shifter is smart," Alice said. It wasn't entirely a lie. "I made the mistake of underestimating him a few times. It won't happen again."

Sam regarded her with narrowed eyes. Her story rang true, but the lack of details raised his hackles. A lot about this situation raised his hackles.

They fell into uneasy silence as they strode through the fog in a uniform triangle, Alice leading point and Sam and Dean following her side by side. All sounds but their heavy footsteps were swallowed by the fog, which seemed to grow darker as they went on. A quick glance at Sam's watch told him that this was just because night was coming on. That knowledge didn't make the gloom seem any less foreboding, nor diminish the suffocating closeness of the wispy, shifting darkness.

Alice finally stopped at a street sign, which declared that they had reached the corner of Trident Ave and Flouret road.

"Where's the house?" Sam asked, squinting as if it would help him see through the fog.

"Through the gate," Alice said. She pointed at the waist-high iron fence bordering the sidewalk. The reason she had been unable to follow Danny into the house, forced to go back for living reinforcements.

Luckily, Dean realized her dilemma and leapt to her aid. He strode ahead of her and pulled the gate open, wresting a screech of protest from the aged metal.

"Ladies first," he said, sweeping with his hand.

"What a gentleman," Alice said, half-joking despite her genuine gratitude.

She let Dean take the lead, falling behind to walk between him and Sam. She watched her step closely as she followed Dean down a paved footpath. The last thing she needed was to step on some stupid nail and dematerialize again, especially with Sam at her back.

"Dean, are you sure we're not going in circles?" Sam asked quietly after they walked for a few minutes.

"I don't think so," Dean replied, his words just as soft as Sam's. Something about the atmosphere would not allow raised voices.

As if to support his claim, a huge silhouette loomed before them, black against the grey darkness. As they got closer, a three story house emerged from the haze. Alice could just barely make out the faded, peeling white paint that had gone black in most places from dirt, mold and neglect. The house had once been beautiful, but time, weather and vandals had taken a toll on it. One of the front columns had collapsed, taking part of the porch roof with it and leaving the front door impassable. The windows gaped at them through the swirling fog, half a dozen pitch black eyes framed by jagged, misted glass. In places, the chipping paint was covered with graffiti. Some of the words and images were done in bright neon colors that seemed out of place in the grim scene, while others had been faded and dulled by time.

"There must be a back door," Alice observed, nodding to the wreck that blocked the main entrance.

"Should we split, or go around together?" Dean asked, glancing from side to side.

A shrill scream from within the house decided for them.

"Split," Alice dictated. "I'll take the left side, you two take the right. Don't kill him 'til I get there, okay?"

Sam rolled his eyes.

"I'm serious," Alice said firmly. "Don't kill him without me."

"We won't," Dean assured her knowingly.

She nodded in satisfaction and started around the house.

"Good to know she's as psychotic as ever," Sam snorted.

From inside, Alice could hear more yelling and shrieks that she assumed belonged to the maid's kid. Danny had chosen a good location to gloat over his prize. There was no way that anyone would hear the screaming from the street, or the houses that bordered the massive Trident House property.

Alice found a door that was boarded up and stopped to pry it open, only to find that it led to a tiny tool closet. She moved on and finally made it to the back of the house. Here, a screen door hung off its hinges, exposing a back hall to the elements. Alice entered the house warily, the fog following her to swirl around her feet. She followed a trail of open doors, hoping that she was going in the right direction. Screams and shouts echoed through the vast empty house, making it hard to tell where they were coming from.

The door trail led her through the house and the screams stopped abruptly when she reached the cavernous dining room. She paused to take in the silence, before picking her way around the ruins of a once grand dining table. She walked through a door that lead to a flight of treacherous stairs that took her down into a basement. She could hear voices ahead and moved as quietly as only a ghost could.

"You don't know what you're doing," she heard Sam say.

She ducked behind the stairs as she reached their end, examining the scene before her. Dean was unconscious on the floor, while an unfamiliar boy who Alice assumed was the maid's son hung from a chain fixed to the ceiling. Sam stood between Danny and Dean, weaponless. Alice frowned, wondering how a sixteen year old kid had managed to disarm and incapacitate the Winchesters, who were supposedly trained so well. She remembered the ease with which she had done much the same at fourteen and fought back a sigh. In their defense, she supposed that they hadn't wanted to hurt her then, and she had told them not to kill Danny now.

"You can still stop this before you really hurt anyone," Sam said placatingly, his hands outstretched. Danny's back was to Alice, but she realized he had a gun, probably taken from one of the Winchesters.

"I've already hurt people!" Danny said, wearing the maid's kid's skin. "I'd do it again if I could!"

"You don't mean that," Sam plead. "You aren't a monster."

"Really? 'Cause Ben seems to think differently," Danny said, nodding towards the maid's son. "Isn't that what you've been calling me all these years? Freak. Worthless. Insignificant. Of course you don't even know what the word insignificant means, do you, you dumbass?"

"Please, Danny, I'm sorry," Ben whined. Blood dripped from his arms, indicating to Alice that Danny had torxed him.

"I-I didn't mean any of it!" Ben cried. "Not really! I was just-just playing around!"

"Yeah? I tried to _kill_ myself, you moron!" Danny snapped harshly. "That's how low you got me! That what your playing around almost did. You would have been a murderer then. How would that have felt?" Danny asked.

"Please-"

" _SHUT UP_!" Danny yelled, cutting Ben off.

"Look, Danny- it's Danny, right?" Sam started. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe you're not a freak? Or a monster? Maybe you've got... superpowers. Maybe you're supposed to be a hero, save people instead of killing them."

Alice smiled slightly at Sam's tactics, waiting for the best moment to strike. She had to do something soon, but if Danny caught sight of her, she would get another faceful of salt, which wouldn't help anyone. Even Danny would end up unhappy, since Sam would probably kill the shifter unless Alice could possess him first.

"Yeah. Well, how much recognition do heroes get anyway?" Danny asked bitterly. "Not very much."

"That's true," Sam admitted. "Trust me, I know. But it's worth it. There's this feeling you get every time you save someone, or make the world a bit safer. It's the best feeling there is."

"That's bullshit. How would you know?" Danny asked bitingly.

"Well, I came here hunting you, didn't I? That's what I do. I save people," Sam said.

"Well, you suck at it!" Danny snapped.

"Maybe I do. But think about it Danny, do you really want to be the thing I would hunt? Do you want to be the monster?" Sam pressed.

Danny considered his words for a moment, before smirking.

"You know what? I do. 'Cause I don't know what it feels like saving people, but I do know what it's like to hurt them."

He cocked the gun.

"And I know that I love that feeling," Danny purred.

Alice chose to step from the shadows then, letting the knife slip from her sleeve as she darted up behind Danny. He noticed her, but too late. She adjusted her grip on the knife and lashed out at the side of Danny's head with the hilt. The force of the blow sent him reeling to the side, his eyes flashing in anger as he hopped away from Alice and shot at her. Alice instinctively cringed away from the bullets, two of which passed through her gut harmlessly. She advanced on Danny and he emptied a clip of silver bullets into her chest as she approached, to no avail.

"What the hell are you?!" Danny demanded, throwing the gun at her uselessly.

Behind him, Dean rose from the ground with a grunt.

"A damn good hunter," he answered Danny. When the shifter turned, Dean's fist collided with his face, sending him sprawling.

"Get his coat off," Alice urged Dean as Danny groaned on the ground.

"What the hell is going on?" Sam demanded, watching Alice with wide eyes and an alarmed expression.

"Dean, quick," Alice whined. Sam was making her nervous.

"You're a bit late to the party," Dean groaned, grabbing Danny by the scruff of the neck and pulling his coat off. Danny protested and tried to struggle, but Dean punched him in the face again and he fell back into stunned complacence. Dean tossed his coat aside.

"Fashionably late," Alice replied.

"Dean, what the hell is going on?" Sam demanded again as Dean let Alice take hold of Danny.

"What are you- What are you gonna do to me?" Danny moaned, wriggling weakly.

"I'm gonna make sure you don't hurt anyone else," Alice replied.

" _Dean_!" Sam cried in frustration.

"Just hang on a minute, Sam!" Dean snapped back. "Alice? Can you do this?"

Instead of replying, Alice glared at Danny. His breath misted as the temperature in the room dropped drastically. It took violent emotion to instigate a possession and one thing Alice was never short of was anger. It only took one try for her to slip into Danny's body, pushing him aside and taking the driver's seat. She could feel his panic, his confusion, could hear his mind running in circles as he struggled to figure out what had just happened to him. Alice shut his thoughts out easily and cracked his neck experimentally. She balled his hands - her hands now - into fists, clenching and unfurling them as Sam and Dean looked on. Dean's face was unreadable, while Sam's confusion, horror and surprise blended into one absurd expression that almost looked a little goofy.

"Sam, stop, you look like a mime," Alice said. The voice she spoke with wasn't her own, but it didn't matter. Sam recognized what had happened.

"Alice?" he questioned.

Alice grinned with Danny's lips in response.


	14. Appearances

"Alice? What the hell?" Sam demanded, staring at her. His expression of shock and horror was unchanged.

"What? What's going on?" Ben asked, even more confused than Sam. Alice winced.

"Ew, I've got zits," she complained.

"So wait, you're not really..." Sam trailed off, processing what he had just witnessed. "Does that mean that... what?"

"Okay, so... maybe I didn't tell you everything about why I'm here," Alice sighed.

"Start talking, Smith," Sam said, crossing his arms over his chest. The confusion and horror had left his features and cold, quiet fury had taken its place.

"Don't you want to get Ben here back to his Mom before you start the interrogation?" Alice said pointedly. She nodded to Ben, still suspended in the corner. Dean cut the rope holding him up and he collapsed with a whimper.

"Can you walk?" Dean asked him.

"I-I think so," Ben replied as Dean helped him to his feet.

"It's two miles back to the Riguel's. You can talk walking," Sam quoted Alice, glaring at her with narrowed eyes.

"Great, let's get going," Alice said drily. Despite herself, she felt nervous about telling Sam the truth. She had never really gotten his number. Sometimes, he seemed to hate her, which she could deal with. Others, he was amiable with her and she suspected this was at least partially out of pity. That, she couldn't deal with.

Honestly, Alice admitted to herself as they climbed the stairs, she had expected more trouble from Dean than Sam, in spite of the feelings she suspected he had developed toward her in 1992. From the little time she had spent with the Winchesters, she got the impression that Dean was more black and white in his judgements than Sam. Dean's worldview was narrow, while Sam's field of vision was more panoramic. He allowed his reality to manifest in more shades of grey. Maybe that was why Dean accepted her return so easily, Alice mused as they left the house and emerged into the fog without. The world was black and white to him, but everyone he loved automatically fell into the white, no matter what they did or became. Dean found someway to justify them.

Alice regarded Dean's back as he led the way through the fog supporting Ben and found herself wondering how he justified her.

"Well?" Sam pressed from behind Alice.

Subtly, she fell in to walk beside him, suddenly wary of having him at her back. She quickly reminded herself of his promise, but somehow, a few words said over a decade ago did little to soothe her apprehensions.

"What's really going on with you, Alice?" Sam asked, his tone a bit steadier now than it had been in the basement. "You're obviously not here by coincidence and you just..."

He gestured at the body she now occupied and she sighed.

"I'm possessing Danny," she admitted. "Although I didn't lie about coming to Dalerton by coincidence. I was... testing the ropes. Seeing if I could still hunt with my... condition."

"You mean the condition of being dead," Sam said. "Unless I missed my guess, you _are_ some kind of ghost, right?"

"Something like that," Alice said. She wasn't going to try to explain the lost soul thing to another Winchester.

Sam scoffed.

"What are you doing, Alice?" he groaned.

"I know, I know," Alice snapped, rolling her eyes. "' _I'm a hunter, I should know better, what's dead should stay dead'_ , yada yada yada, etc. etc."

"Yeah, pretty much," Sam said. "You're not thinking straight."

"Sure I am."

"You can't stay here," Sam said persistently. "You need to move on."

"Tried that," Alice shot back. "It didn't agree with me."

A look of confusion flashed across Sam's face, but it disappeared quickly.

"I'm not interested in hearing what happened to you," he said.

"No, you're only interested in sending me packing," Alice growled.

"It's kind of my job," Sam said. His eyes flew to Dean. "It's kind of _our_ job. It was your job too, so I'm sure you'll understand."

"We're not sending her anywhere, Sam," Dean called back.

"Dean, I-"

Sam cut off, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Dean, can I have a word with you?" he asked.

"Fine," Dean said, though he didn't stop walking.

"In private?" Sam stressed.

Dean stopped and handed Ben off to Alice.

"We'll catch up to you," he told her.

"Whatever," Alice said.

"Hey, try not to give Mrs. Riguel a heart attack," Dean said.

"I'll do my best."

"And you should get those covered up before you get him home," Dean gestured to Ben's newly acquired Torxing marks.

She kept walking, holding Ben's arm to steady him as they went. He cringed away from her and watched her carefully.

"S-so... you're not- not really Danny?" he asked shakily.

"No," Alice replied.

"Well... who are you then?" Ben asked.

"My name is Alice," she replied.

"So... um... is it rude t-to ask what you are?" Ben pressed cautiously.

"Very," Alice answered.

"Okay, s-sorry," he said quickly.

She eyed his torxing marks, still bleeding slowly. She drew the knife from her sleeve. Ben looked ready to bolt, but Alice was quick to reassure him.

"Cool it, kid," she said. "I'm just making bandages for your arms."

"Oh, o-okay," Ben said, relief apparent in his tone, though he didn't relax.

Alice cut two strips from the bottom of Danny's shirt - her shirt now, she supposed. It was an ugly dull green color, but Alice didn't have time to worry about her wardrobe at the moment. She wrapped the strips around Ben's arms, minding the pressure.

"Thanks," Ben said when she finished.

"Don't mention it," Alice replied. "You can make it up to me by telling your Mom not to freak out when she sees me. I need to use your bathroom before I skedaddle."

"I-I'll think of something to say," Ben said.

They had no more time to talk, because Ben's house emerged from the gloom ahead of them. Alice couldn't be sure, but she thought it looked like the fog was thinning a bit. Maybe it would lift enough for them to drive by the time they were finished taking care of Ben and his mother.

Alice hung back while Ben knocked on the door. A moment later, his mother answered it. She looked like hell and her reaction wasn't entirely positive when she saw Ben.

"Ben? I-i-is- Is that you?" she sobbed, looking him over with a tortured expression that held fear, uncertainty, anxiety and carefully restrained hope.

"I-it's me, Mom," Ben said, breaking down into tears himself when he saw his mother.

"Oh Ben!" Mrs. Riguel said, apparently convinced by her son's tears. She rushed forward to embrace him, sobbing so hard that it took her a moment to notice Alice, inhabiting Danny, who still looked like Ben. When she did, she drew back into the house shrieking, pulling Ben in with her. The door slammed shut, but Alice could hear Ben speaking hurriedly to his mother on the other side. Alice sighed beleagueredly and leaned against the wall to wait. A few moments later, Mrs. Riguel cracked the door open, peering out at Alice with wide, red, wet eyes.

"You- you saved m-m-my s-son?" she questioned.

Alice could see where Ben got his stuttering from.

"I did," she confirmed.

Mrs. Riguel sniffled, more tears threatening to spill from her eyes as she looked Alice over.

"You're l-like th-the thing th-th-that t-took Ben?" she asked.

"Something like that," Alice said. "Can I use your bathroom? After that I'll wait outside if you're more comfortable that way."

Mrs. Riguel shook her head vigorously.

"N-no, my son s-says you s-s-saved him," she choked. "My home is your-your home."

"That's very gracious of you," Alice said with a smile as she stepped into the house.

"The- The bathroom's th-that way," Mrs. Riguel said, pointing.

"Thanks."

Alice did her business, then stood to examine herself in the bathroom mirror. Ben's face stared back at her, while Danny's mind screamed at her from somewhere in the recesses of the brain they now shared. Alice took a second to bask in the possession experience. She already knew how it worked. She had been possessed before, albeit by a benevolent being, so she was no stranger to the odd arrangement of dominance and withdrawal between host and guest. Or, in her case, she supposed, intruder. Being the one in control was a completely alien feeling, however, and left Alice feeling a bit giddy.

_Get out of me, you bitch!_

Alice ignored Danny's voice. Other than his incessant yammering, possession seemed much like inhabiting her own body. Except, of course, for the fact that this wasn't her body. Not by a long shot.

 _I could fix that,_ Alice thought.

But how?

Just as she hadn't the slightest idea where to start when it came to possession, Alice didn't know how to shift.

 _Any pointers?_ she asked Danny.

_Fuck you!_

"Okay, no help from him," Alice muttered aloud.

She stared at Ben's face in the mirror and tried to picture her own. She imagined her face, the face that really belonged to her. Alice wished she had a picture of herself. It had been a while since she'd seen herself in the mirror. If you counted in hell years...

Alice shuddered and drove her mind away from anything to do with hell, instead focusing on her appearance. She noticed her eyes and realized that they were copies of her own, as they had been while she was alive, even though Ben's eyes were dark brown.

"The trickster's touch," Alice remembered. She focused on her eyes and slowly, the rest of her face came back to her.

And then her nose fell off.

"Eeee!" Alice squeaked in surprise and disgust. She got over the shock quickly and itched at the skin of her cheek experimentally. It slid and squished wetly beneath her finger and came off easily.

"So gross," Alice moaned. She realized this was going to be a messy transformation and promptly stripped. She stepped into the Riguel's bathtub and started pulling off chunks of skin and flesh. It didn't exactly hurt, but neither was it a pleasant sensation. Her skin itched where it was still attached and when it came sliding off, it left her feeling cold and exposed.

Alice was careful to keep an image of herself in her mind as she continued stripping herself of her skin. Her teeth and hair started falling out and her nails came loose in their beds.

"Aw, shit," Alice groaned at that. She shook her hands, closing her eyes and letting the nails fall off on their own, feeling a bit nauseous. Alice could cut someone up ten ways from Sunday, take a bath in guts, and, apparently, pull her own skin off, but she still got squeamish when it came to fingernails.

As she kept tearing at her flesh, she found herself wondering if she would get down to bone. Before she could, new flesh and new skin started emerging to replace the old. She felt a sickening grinding and realized it was her bones shortening to accommodate her desired height. Something startled her by brushing against her new shoulders and she realized it was the dark blonde hair sprouting from her head. Her mouth lit up with a dull ache and she moved her tongue out of the way as new molars pushed their way through her gums, blood leaking from her mouth as they did. New fingernails started creeping over her tender nailbeds and she grit her fresh teeth, focusing on other aspects of the shift to keep from throwing up.

Finally, everything stopped and the only sound left was Alice's labored breathing.

She stepped out of the tub shakily to peek at herself in the mirror. She grinned at the sight that greeted her.

"Hello Alice," she said. The face that grinned back at her was a familiar, welcome sight.

Alice realized that she was covered in slime and stepped back into the shower. She had left one hell of a mess in the tub, as she predicted she would. Bending down, Alice grabbed handfuls of slimy flesh, grimacing as she moved it into the small wastebasket.

"Blech," she groaned.

Finally, the tub was more or less cleared. Slime and tiny bits of skin, hair, and nails still clung to the sides, and Alice just rinsed them down the drain, before washing the blood and other gunk off of herself. When she was done, she helped herself to one of Mrs. Riguel's towels and slipped back into Danny's clothes for lack of a better option.

As she inspected herself in the mirror, she realized something was missing. She lifted her shirt and sighed. She was going to need to get another tattoo to ward against demonic possession. Then she frowned, wondering if she even needed to worry about that anymore. After all, how many more people could possibly squeeze into Danny's body?

Alice decided she would rather not find out. Then it occurred to her that she might not need to get technically tattooed after all.

She stared at her stomach intently, visualizing an anti-posession tattoo and rubbing her skin lightly. It started peeling off and she groaned, hoping that she wouldn't have to shift all over again because of this.

Thankfully, she didn't. As soon as the old skin peeled off her stomach, new flesh took its place. This patch melded seamlessly with the skin around it and featured an anti-possession symbol that actually more closely resembled a dark birthmark than a tattoo. Oh well. Alice would take it.

Alice grimaced as Danny gave the equivalent of a mental kick in an attempt to push Alice out of his body.

_LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE!_

"Wow, what hospitality," Alice mumbled aloud.

_GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!_

This wouldn't do.

Alice knew exactly how to fix the problem. All she needed was a binding link and she would never have to worry about Danny kicking her out of his meat. Alice had more than her fair share of trouble with binding links, but that also meant that she knew how to use them. And with her nice little ability to self-tattoo(kind of), she could get one without carving or burning it into her flesh.

But where to put it?

Binding links were powerful, but they shared a classic flaw with the anti-possession tattoo; if broken, they were rendered ineffective. Alice realized she had a rather unique opportunity to manifest her binding link somewhere no one would be able to tamper with it.

After a long moment of thought, Alice opened her mouth wide and inspected the roof of her mouth, as far back as her palate bone extended. She concentrated on an image of a binding link, and the smooth portion of her mouth's back roof. She used her tongue to wiggle and worry, speeding the loose flesh on its way out of her mouth. Alice spat it into the sink in disgust, and kept going.

When she was finished, there was no visible change to her mouth, but when she probed the area with her tongue, she could feel a slight recess in the shape of a binding link.

Experimentally, Alice tried letting go of Danny's body. Immediately, he surged forward, putting everything he had into trying to exorcise her. For a moment, Alice thought he was succeeding, but then she hit a barrier at the edge of their mind. She could go no further.

_WHAT?! NO! NO!_

Danny wailed as Alice pushed her way back to the forefront, shoving him into the deepest, darkest corner of their head and taking the rest for herself.

 _Relax, kid,_ Alice told him while she laughed aloud at her own cleverness. _There are worse things than sharing a body._

_YOU'RE NOT SHARING, WHORE! GET OUT!_

"Someone needs to spend some time in hell," Alice muttered. She considered her words for a moment, then grimaced in distaste. "Actually, I take that back."

No one deserved hell. Not even Danny. Not even after he'd killed so many, hurt so many more.

Alice's thoughts and inner conversations were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Alice? You in there?" came Dean's voice.

"Yeah," Alice replied, bending over to rinse the slime and blood out of her mouth.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," Alice called. She opened the door, grinning at the expression on Dean's face when he saw her.

"So, how do I look?" Alice asked, twirling light-heartedly.

"Uh... I think your hair's darker than before," Dean said after a long examination.

"So I look great," Alice said blithely. She peeked past him, searching the hall. "So, what happened with you and Sam?" she asked.

"Well, we decided not to exorcise you, or gank Danny, or go after your bones," Dean said.

"Gee, thanks," Alice snorted.

"I told Sam I thought we wouldn't be able to do any of that and he didn't insist that we try," Dean said by way of explanation.

Alice nodded, glad that Dean, at least, remembered his promise.

"So, where is that freakishly tall, burn-happy little shit?" Alice asked good-naturedly.

"Last I saw?" Dean chuckled. "Mrs. Riguel had him trapped."

Alice shuddered. If Mrs. Riguel had been grateful to her, she could only imagine what Sam was going through at the moment.

"Why don't we go rescue him?" Alice suggested.

"He'd probably appreciate that," Dean agreed.

Alice started in the direction of Mrs. Riguel's sobbing, and Dean followed.

"So, Alice," he started. "After we pull Sam out of the frying pan, you wanna grab a drink?"

Alice smiled at the invitation.

"Sounds nice," she allowed. "But first I have to keep my promise to the mayor."

"Oh. Right," Dean said, sounding a bit disappointed.

"Rain check?" Alice requested placatingly.

"Sure," Dean said.

Alice silently cursed her stupid obligations. She would much rather get drunk with Dean than go through the trouble of shifting again and finding a way to vindicate the mayor.

"You might have to break me out of prison at some point," Alice warned him.

"Sounds like my kind of date," Dean japed.

Alice smiled a bit at that, ignoring her excitement at his phrasing.

 _Oh my god you've still got a stupid crush on him after like, 1200 years,_ she accused herself.

Unfortunately, Danny heard that thought and started throwing obscene, mocking suggestions her way.

"Damn!"

"What?" Dean asked.

Alice shook her head, ignoring Danny.

"I'm gonna have to keep a lid on my thoughts," she said.

Dean looked curious, but didn't press further. They rounded the corner to find Sam locked in Mrs. Riguel's tearful embrace. He looked extremely uncomfortable as she clutched him, her tears creating a large wet spot on the front of his suit jacket.

"I'm, uh... I'm gonna wait outside," Dean said quietly, slipping past Alice and making for the front door. Alice couldn't blame him for wanting to avoid Sam's fate. She _could_ blame him for leaving her to think of a way to get Sam out of this on her own.

Alice cleared her throat loudly.

"Mrs. Riguel," she said.

Natalie turned to her, looking horribly confused.

"Wh-wh-who are you?" she asked.

"She's, uh... with us," Sam said, recognizing Alice. "What's up?"

"Well, you know, that... thing's still out there," Alice lied, injecting a sense of urgency into her tone. "Case isn't over 'til that sucker's... behind bars."

She chose her words carefully to placate any suspicions Mrs. Riguel might have had.

"I-it's s-st-still out there?" Mrs. Riguel squeaked, the color draining from her face.

"Yes, Mrs. Riguel," Sam said grimly. "My colleague is right, we really do need to go after it."

"We'll contact you with any more developments," Alice said, perhaps a bit more cheerily than she should have. She was finding it hard to feign grimness, happy as she was with how things had turned out.

"D-d-do that," Natalie called after them as they strode out the door.

"That was kind of mean," Sam said once the door was closed.

"So should I have left you back there with her?" Alice asked wryly.

"No!" Sam replied immediately. "Definitely not."

Alice chuckled.

"I thought so. You can call her in an hour or so and tell her you got the shifter," Alice suggested. "That ought to put her at ease."

"I'll do that," Sam said. "So, what are you gonna do?"

"Well, I have a few promises to keep," Alice explained shortly. "After that... I'm not sure. I should probably be moving on. I've still got a reaper on my ass."

Sam raised his eyebrows at her inquisitively and Alice remembered that he didn't know about her escape from hell, or the events that followed.

"It's complicated," she said by way of explanation.

"Right," Sam said. "So you're not planning on hanging around."

"No," Alice replied.

Sam nodded, but he didn't look entirely satisfied.

"I would have thought you'd like that," Alice said, studying his expression.

"Oh, I will," he assured her.

"But..."

"Dean won't," Sam shrugged.

Alice's new heart skipped a beat. Shit.

"Well..." Alice weighed her words carefully before she spoke. "Maybe I'll have to pop in on you two some time."

"He'd like that," Sam said, just as cautious and guarded as Alice.

"But you wouldn't."

Sam shrugged again.

"As long as you don't bring legions of demons down on us or something crazy like that, I wouldn't care," he admitted. Ahead, the Impala became visible through the thick screen of fog. Alice could make out Dean in the front seat, bobbing his head to some music that she couldn't hear from where she stood.

"Well, so long, Winchester," Alice told Sam, starting off down the street.

"You're not gonna say good-bye?" Sam asked, nodding to Dean, oblivious in the car.

Alice regarded him for a moment.

"Give him my best," she finally said, before walking away.

Sam watched her disappear into the fog, before making his way to the Impala. Dean looked up when he entered and turned the music down.

"Where's Alice?" he asked when he didn't see her.

"She said something about keeping promises," Sam snorted. "She sends her best."

"Oh," Dean said, trying not to look to let down.

"Dude, you're not really gonna try to drive in this, are you?" Sam asked, gesturing to the fog that still surrounded them.

"Well we have to get baby back to the motel," Dean pointed out. "Besides, who else is going to be on the road right now?"

Sam rolled his eyes.

"Go slow," he said.

"Oh come on, Sam," Dean said teasingly, a hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "I never jostle my passengers."

Sam snorted derisively.

"Sure," he retorted sarcastically.

* * *

They couldn't leave town until the fog lifted, which took two days. According to Sam, Dean spent most of that time passed out and Dean wasn't going to argue or complain.

"Hey, I was catching up on like, three months worth of four hour naps," he said in his defense.

"Whatever," Sam replied without taking his eyes off the paper he was reading. "At least you don't look like you're dying from kidney failure anymore."

"That doesn't even make any sense," Dean frowned.

"Yeah, because the circles under your eyes made it look like- you know what? Never mind," Sam said, rolling his eyes.

"Whatever, geek-boy," Dean taunted, grabbing his jacket. "I'm famished. Let's get something to eat and then hit the road."

"Fine by me," Sam said, grabbing his duffel bag and following Dean out the door. Dean went right to the car, but Sam paused, a spot of white on the door catching his eye.

A note.

"Hey, Dean," Sam called as he read it. He plucked it off the door and handed it to Dean. "It's for you."

Dean inspected the scrap of paper.

 _You still owe me a drink sometime, Winchester,_ it read. Below the words was a phone number.

"Guess Alice got her hands on a phone," Dean observed, folding the note up and tucking it into his shirt pocket.

"Guess she's never heard of voicemail," Sam scoffed.

"Come on, the note's classier," Dean said in her defense.

"The note's creepier," Sam shot back. "Doesn't it kind of make you feel like you're being stalked?"

"Not really."

Sam shook his head as they pulled out of the parking lot.

"How can you be a hunter if you're allergic to silver and iron?" he asked abruptly.

Dean shrugged.

"I guess you have to be a careful hunter," he replied.

Sam shook his head.

"As if she wasn't weird enough already," he muttered.

"She's not so bad," Dean shrugged. He grimaced. "Her eyes didn't get any less creepy though."

"Dude, I don't get what it is with you and her eyes," Sam snorted.

"Sam. They _change color_ ," Dean stressed, shuddering. "While you're watching."

"So, are you gonna call her sometime, even though her eyes creep you out?" Sam asked, grinning.

"We'll see," Dean replied.


	15. Tell Them Alice Sent You

**Two months later**

* * *

Alice was in the middle of a hunt when the call came. Actually, she was closer to the end of the hunt, stalking a vamp. He was the last of a coven she'd slaughtered in San Jose and she had been tracking him for two weeks now. Crouching behind a dumpster, intentionally downwind of him, Alice was certain that she would finally nab the sucker.

Honestly, she should have remembered to turn her phone off. In an amateur display of eagerness, however, she rushed into the hunt without taking the time to make sure it was silenced. Alice had eyes on the vampire when 'Love in an Elevator' started blaring from her pocket. The vamp whipped around to glare in her direction, spotting her as she peeked around the edge of the dumpster. Alice cursed out loud as her phone kept ringing. She stepped out from behind the bin and dodged as the monster charged her. He turned quickly, but ducked back as she swiped at him with a machete. Her phone kept ringing as they danced quickly in circles, neither landing any blows until her ringtone began its third repeat. Then Alice's blade connected with his side and he fell, blood gushing from the wound. His momentum pulled the blade free from his side for Alice and she quickly brought it around. It's downward arc was brutal and quick as lightning. Alice heard a satisfactory clang as the blade went straight through the monster's neck and hit the black top below.

Alice took a moment to breathe, straightening and stretching. Her back cracked when she moved and she groaned at the pop. Her phone was still ringing, so she took it out of her pocket, curious to see what had interrupted her hunt.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Alice?" she heard Sam's voice from the other end. "Thank God! I need help!"

He started talking too quickly for her to understand, obviously panicked. She wiped her machete on the vamp's shirt and interrupted Sam's breathless rant.

"Whoa, Sam, slow down," she said. "Tell me what's going on, but do it slower. Maybe dial down the volume a bit too."

She walked away from the decapitated corpse, opting to let the cops find it and make what they would of it.

"Okay," Sam said, taking a deep breath before starting again. "Me and Dean were working a case, a missing persons that sounded pretty weird. We connected it to this place called the Mystery Spot, which as far as I can tell is just hoax piled on top of hoax. But-" he stopped. "Please believe me?"

"The chances that I won't believe you are slim to none. Keep talking," Alice said, heading for the lot where she'd left her car.

"Every day is Tuesday. And it's the same Tuesday. The only things that go differently are the things that I try to change," Sam said.

"Okay. That doesn't sound too bad. I guess you and Dean need my help getting out of the cycle, huh?" she asked.

"Dean doesn't know that it's happening," Sam said. "Every morning, we wake up, and it's Tuesday, and he forgets that it's supposed to be Wednesday."

"Okay. That's weird," Alice said, already running through the possibilities in her mind. "Is there anything that's constant? Anything that's always the same from day to day? Even if it's just a little detail."

Alice had reached her car and opened the door.

"Yeah. Dean dies every single day," Sam said.

Alice froze halfway into the car as she processed that information. She bit her lip and climbed in the rest of the way.

"Does it happen the same way every day?" she asked steadily. She didn't have to force herself to stay calm and keep thinking. It was an automatic reaction for her by now. Panicking never kept anyone alive.

"No. It's different every day, because I warn him. The first time, he got shot, then he got run over by a car, then a dresser fell from a few stories up on him, and it just doesn't stop," Sam said.

"How many Tuesdays do you think you've had?" Alice asked.

"I stopped counting around thirty," Sam said.

"Have you called me before?" Alice asked.

"No," Sam said.

"That's good. Whatever's causing the time loop, it's local. I've heard of it happening before, but I've never actually run across it. Where are you?" she asked.

"Wait, if you come here, chances are that you'll start... not remembering too," Sam said.

"I know. I plan to camp nearby and observe from the outside. That way I can at least be close if you stop the loop and need help." She paused. "Sam, why didn't you call me sooner? Or anyone, for that matter?" she asked.

"I can't get a cell phone signal anywhere in this damn town and there wasn't a phone in our hotel. I broke into a house and I'm using the landline," Sam said.

"That's interesting," Alice said, already running the facts over in her head and checking them against different phenomenon. "And it's also a bit flattering that I'm the first person you thought to call," she added, starting her car.

"No, you aren't. I tried some other friends, but couldn't get ahold of them," Sam said.

"Hmmf. Whatever. So, where are you?" she said.

"Douglas, Arizona," he said.

"Arizona, huh? We had some good times around there, didn't we?" Alice said with a touch of nostaligia.

"Not really. Can you just hurry? I don't know how much more of this I can take," Sam plead.

"I'm on my way right now. Just keep calling me. And Sam, try to see if you can keep Dean from dying again," Alice instructed him.

"That's what I've been trying to do," Sam said wearily.

"Okay, hang in there," she said.

She hung up, pocketing her phone and staring at the road ahead, lost in thought. The fact that Dean was dying every day was bad. It meant that most likely, he was supposed to die on that day. The time loop might be the only thing keeping him alive.

 _What a way to live,_ she thought. Dying every day and then waking up alive again, just to do it all over. Talk about pointlessness.

Alice clenched her jaw and drove faster.

* * *

Alice was parked off the highway about a mile from Douglas, waiting for Sam to call her. She'd stocked up on food(Mostly slim jims, granola bars and beeferoni that she was not looking forward to eating cold. She instructed Sam to keep calling her while she pored through books that she had snagged from the Library of Phoenix in passing. They covered a variety of topics regarding supernatural time phenomena. Alice read them to kill time as much as to figure out what was happening in Douglas.

She'd been camping like this for about two weeks, going over anything and everything that could cause something like this. The results had been discouraging. The information that Sam had been able to give her was dismal, to say the least. She'd suggested that he just sit Dean down in a chair and leave him there, but for five days, he'd just kept getting up, and being killed in ridiculous, statistically unlikely manners. She'd finally had Sam knock him out and tie him up in the chair and an hour later, the roof caved in. So whatever was going on, Dean was absolutely dying every single Tuesday. Which meant that if it was a being doing this, they really had it out for Dean Winchester. Or, in what she considered to be the worse case, it was just a natural occurrence and someone upstairs had decided it was Dean's time to go.

Her phone rang and she picked it up quickly, sitting up.

"Sam?" she asked.

"I'm here. I need you to talk to Dean again for me," he said wearily.

"Put him on," she said.

"Alice?" Dean's questioning voice came from the other end.

"Okay, everything Sam just told you is true. You're a narrow-minded moron, hunters should know better, blah blah etcetera, etcetera. God, am I _sick_ of having this conversation with you."

"Oh. Well, ok. So umm... let's get the hell out of dodge," he said.

"Nope, you always die before you make it out of town," Alice said.

"So what-"

"You have to look for whatever's causing it," Alice said. "Find it, don't die, and call me when you're done."

She hung up, not expecting to hear back from them until the next morning. But to her surprise, Dean called back three hours later.

"Alice?"

"Dean?! Wow, you're still alive!" she said happily.

"Yeah, it's over. We stopped it," he said.

Alice sat up straight.

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Positive," Dean said.

"You better be, 'cause I'm coming in," she said, starting her car up. "Where are you staying?"

"The Roche motel on Pan American ave," Dean said. "It's just about the first street when you come into town."

"So what was causing it?" she asked.

"Trickster. THE trickster, same one who dropped Sam and me through that wormhole the first time," Dean said.

"Loki? Damn, that bastard can hold a grudge. What did you do to piss him off so bad anyway?" Alice asked.

"Well, we did try to kill him that one time," Dean admitted. "We didn't even get close to succeeding though, so he shouldn't really hold that one against us."

"Did you kill him this time?" Alice asked.

"Eh... no."

Alice rolled her eyes.

"Why not?" she demanded.

"It's complicated," Dean replied.

Alice entered the tiny town and started looking for the motel. "Whatever. Which way do I turn on Pan American?"

"Left," Dean said. "Look, I'm gonna load up and we're going to get the hell out of dodge."

"Tell me you're planning to go after Loki," Alice sighed, though she felt like she already knew the answer.

"Actually, me and Sam have bigger fish to fry," Dean said.

Alice's eyebrows shot up at the unexpected answer.

"Bigger than a shithead norse god with a vengeful streak?" she questioned.

"Somewhat."

"Now this, I have to hear," Alice said, pulling into the motel parking lot. She could see Dean standing by the trunk of his car and beeped at him. He waved at her, and she hung up on him.

"So," Alice called as she approached him. "What's the bigger fish?"

"It's a little complicated," Dean said, closing the trunk.

"You wanna tell me on the road?" Alice offered.

Dean's eyebrows shot up.

"You coming with us?" he asked.

"If you'll have me," Alice shrugged. "Anything that's bigger fish than Loki has to be interesting. Not to mention the fact that you owe me a drink."

"Well, we could definitely use some help with this one," Dean replied.

"Great," Alice smiled. "I've got to grab some stuff and wipe my prints off the car. I'll just be a minute."

"Right," Dean laughed at her. "You're gonna get all your prints off the car."

"Hey, I was intentionally careful about what I touched!" Alice called over her shoulder.

She grabbed her bags from the car, tucking a few loose books into a duffel, before spraying down the steering wheel and door handles with ammonia and wiping them clean. As she closed the car door, careful to leave no new marks, a shot rang out at her back.

Gunfire was a sound Alice knew well. She dropped to a crouch immediately and drew her own gun. She spun on the balls of her toes to survey the scene. What she saw stopped her cold.

Dean leaned heavily against the trunk of the Impala, one hand over his chest. He stared in shock at the man standing in front of him, a bum, if looks were any indication. He held a gun in shaky hands, still aimed at Dean.

Alice felt like things were moving in slow motion, yet very quickly at the same time. Dean's legs gave out and he fell, while the bum dropped the gun and ran. Alice instinctively fired on him, one of her five bullets finding its mark and lodging in the bum's leg. He fell to the ground with a shriek, twisting to stem the flow of blood through his filthy, torn jeans.

Alice's first thought was to go after him and finish the job, but she remembered Dean and scrambled to his side. He was on the ground, blood on his hands and his chest and his lips as he struggled to breathe and stared at the sky with wide eyes.

"Dean!"

Alice was startled by her own voice. She didn't remember telling herself to speak and it felt like someone else was crying his name.

Alice had seen people shot before. She'd been shot before herself. She knew how to handle it. But now she forgot everything she knew. She didn't remember moving, but she suddenly found herself holding him. She tried to calm herself, tried focus, so she could help him, but it was so hard.

"Dean? Dean, look at me," she ordered.

He tensed in her arms, gasping and gurgling as blood leaked from the corners of his mouth to blaze a crimson trail down his cheek. Some part of Alice's mind that was still working properly realized that the bullet must have punctured one of his lungs. Dean was drowning in his own blood, much the same way Alice had when she died so long ago.

"Dean!" she heard a familiar voice yell. She looked up to see Sam running toward them.

"You're going to be fine. Just hold on. Don't fall asleep, stay awake," Alice ordered, remembering how it felt to die. She meant to speak firmly, but her words came out as a low, barely audible mumble. "If you stay awake, you'll be fine. Dean?"

"What happened?" Sam asked. Alice didn't hear him. She was too busy shaking Dean, who had stopped struggling on her lap.

"Dean?! Dean please!" she begged, her voice high and thin. She could feel that he wasn't breathing and though his eyes were still open, there was nothing behind them. They stared past her lifelessly.

Everything went silent.

Alice could see Sam yelling, but she couldn't hear him as he wrenched Dean's body from her limp arms. Her eyes, wide in what the still functioning corner of her brain told her was delayed shock, wandered, settling on a pool of blood a few feet away.

The bum. Where was the bum?

Alice got to her feet and stumbled toward the blood. The bum was gone, but he'd left a clear trail behind him.

Like snapping out of a nightmare, the world came back into focus for Alice in an instant. Everything grew louder, clearer, and rage rushed in to sweep her grief aside. She embraced it greedily, letting her feet move of their own accord along the path of bright red droplets left by Dean's killer. Vengeance sharpened her steps and the air grew cold around her. The blood on the ground froze as she passed it, tucking her gun away and unsheathing her knife instead.

She didn't have to go far. The bum was limping down an alley when she caught up to him. Alice did nothing to disguise her presence. She let her feet fall more heavily as she quickly approached the man. He glanced back, crying out in panic when he saw her coming. His attempt to run was poor and short-lived. Alice broke into a run with a feral shriek, lunging the second before she would have knocked into the man and sent him tumbling to the ground. She slashed at the backs of his ankles and he screamed as he fell to his knees.

"Please... Please!" he sobbed through broken yellow teeth, rolling onto his back and throwing his hands up defensively.

"Please, please!" Alice mocked. With a savage downcut, she sliced his palms open and he withdrew his hands quickly, his screams echoing all around them.

"I'm gonna tear you apart, piece by piece!" Alice promised, kneeling at his side and wrapping a hand around his neck. His screams turned to choking whimpers as she squeezed. The pleasure Alice felt at the expression of terror on his face put a smile on hers, in spite of her grief and rage. She must have looked like a madwoman, but she didn't care. Let this bastard die scared out of his wits.

"I'm gonna hurt you in ways you can't even dream of," Alice hissed venomously, tightening her grip to silence him further. He started turning a bit purple, and his hands clawed at hers to no avail. "Then I'm gonna kill you and when you get to hell, you'd better tell them that Alice Smith sent you, or I'll march down there and put you to the rack myself."

"You'd go back to hell for this guy? I mean, I know you want him to suffer for what he just did, but come on."

Alice froze at the voice behind her.

"You," she growled, slowly turning to face Loki.

He spread his arms, his expression uncharacteristically solemn.

"Me," he said, his tone as somber as his countenance.

"You did this," Alice stormed, releasing the bum and rising to her feet. He gasped for breath on the ground behind her, but she ignored him.

"What, kill Dean Winchester? He did that," Loki said, pointing at the bum.

"So you're completely blameless?" Alice hissed through her teeth, fingers clenching around the knife that she knew was useless against the trickster.

There it was. The self-satisfied smirk that all tricksters wore by default.

"Well..." Loki trailed off, shrugging. "I may have had a teeny _tiny eensy weensy_ little part in it."

Alice's eyes narrowed to slits and the alley grew even colder. Frost crept down the blade of her knife and the bum shook violently on the ground behind her.

"I'm going to kill you," Alice spat.

"What, with that?" Loki scoffed, nodding to the knife in her hand.

"Maybe you don't die now," Alice said, her tone flat, even, and colder than the air around her. "But I'll hunt you down. I'll find you. And when I do, you'll beg for a pine stake through the chest."

"Sounds delightful," Loki said. It was meant as a jape, but it fell flat.

He knew who she was. He knew what she'd done. He knew, above all else, how many tricksters she had already killed.

"'Til then, Smith," he chuckled. If he was afraid, he wasn't going to show it.

Suddenly, he was gone and Alice was alone in the alley. She started to walk away. She needed to get a drink. And find Sam. He would want in on this hunt.

Alice had forgotten the bum, until he cried out in pain behind her. She stopped and turned back to see him slowly crawling down the alley.

 _The trickster made him do it,_ Alice told herself. _He didn't know... he might not even have had a choice. He could count as an innocent. How many more innocents can I afford to kill before they track me down and drag me back to hell?_

Alice almost talked herself into walking away. But then a voice that didn't belong to her piped up maliciously from the far corner of her mind.

 _You deserve it,_ Danny sneered. _This is what you get for taking me. I hope that everyone you love dies and then they come for you and you burn forever._

"You'll burn right next to me, kid," Alice snarled aloud.

Never the less, she was past reason again. She advanced on the bum slowly, turning the knife between her fingers as she approached. He saw her coming and struggled desperately to crawl more quickly. Alice caught up to him and stepped on his mangled ankle, wrenching an ear-splitting shriek of pain from him. She bent down and slit his throat quickly, silencing him. Holding his head up by his hair, Alice listened to his gurgling death throes with a sense of grim, shallow satisfaction.

"Don't forget," she murmured at his ear. "Tell them Alice sent you."

* * *

Alice forgot about finding Sam when she stumbled onto a bar. She sheathed her knife, which still dripped with the bum's blood. Usually, Alice would have been appalled at the thought of putting a knife away without cleaning it, but just then it was the farthest thing from her mind.

"Whiskey," she requested in response to the bartender's amiable greeting. "Lots of it."

Alice was drinking when the police car raced past, its sirens blaring and shrieking. Douglas was an absurdly small town. Alice pegged its population at maybe 1500 tops. She wouldn't be able to hide here for very long, which meant that she needed to get the hell out of dodge before the cops started looking for the bum's killer. Even that thought failed to raise Alice's blood, and she kept drinking like someone who didn't have an escape to make or a debt to pay.

"Are you okay kid?" the bartender asked her when she ordered her third drink.

"Depends on how you mean," Alice said. "Whatever you mean, I don't need therapy for it, so if you could just get me another," she held up her empty glass, "that would be great."

He stared at her for another moment, before complying with a shrug.

Alice lost track of how many drinks she knocked back. Her sense of time had been left somewhere in the motel parking lot. As she was ordering another shot, Sam walked into the bar.

"'Bout time, Winchester," she grumbled as he approached her. "How'd you find me?"

"There are four bars in town and this one was closest," Sam said simply. He looked like hell. Alice could tell he'd been crying and he was covered in blood. Dean's blood. Alice realized she must have his blood on her as well, but dressed all in black, it didn't show.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Alice said, the words short and clipped. She wished she could sound more consoling, but she was desperately clinging to rage to keep her own grief at bay and the anger left little room for sympathy.

"Yeah," Sam acknowledged, taking the stool next to her. "Me too."

"Keep 'em coming," Alice ordered the bartender. He narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously.

"Lady, you Irish or somethin'?" he demanded. "You're pushing the border of alcohol poisoning here."

"Well, I'm still standing, still talking, still thinking straight, so are you gonna get me more whiskey or not?" Alice snapped.

The man shrugged and poured her another shot.

"Whatever, you keep payin', I'll keep pourin'," he said. "Least 'til you start wobblin'."

"How kind of you," Alice sneered, knocking the shot back and gesturing for another. She paused and pointed to Sam. "Get him something too."

"I'm fine," Sam said.

"Really?" Alice scoffed, turning to him. "'Cause you don't look fine."

"Okay, maybe I'm not fine," Sam admitted. Alice could see how shaky he was, despite the fact that he was trying hard to hide it. "But I'm not gonna get shit faced either."

"How virtuous of you," Alice commented, motioning for another drink. She barely felt woozy and her best guess was that Danny had a higher tolerance for alcohol than a human. Alice was anything but happy about this. She wasn't even drunk yet, and she felt like throwing up from the sheer amount of liquid she'd ingested.

"It was Loki, Alice," Sam told her. "I just know it was."

"Yeah, so do I," Alice said. "I saw the bastard."

"You did?" Sam said, becoming more animated for a second, before he slumped. "But I'm guessing if you killed him you wouldn't be here."

"Very sharp," Alice said dryly. The bartender had wandered off to serve another customer, leaving a shot on the bar for Alice. She traced the rim of the small, narrow glass instead of downing it, watching the amber liquid quiver from the slight vibrations traveling through the wooden bartop.

"We have to go after him," Sam said, his tone resolute. "If we find him, he can bring Dean back."

Alice snorted.

"What, you think this is all just some trick of his?" Alice demanded, turning to face Sam.

"He can undo this," Sam said firmly. Alice could see the desperation in his eyes. He was grasping at straws, searching for any way this could be a anything but real. Alice realized that he had been trapped in a dream of sorts. The months of repeating Tuesdays, all with this outcome had taken their toll on him. Sam didn't want to accept that the cycle had been broken and Dean was still dead.

"Listen Winchester," Alice said, her tone cold and sharp. "This is real. It's not some vision the trickster conjured. It's not a dream, or a spell, or a... a damn movie that you can rewind and erase and try to change. Dean's dead, and the trickster can't change that anymore than we can. All that's left is revenge."

Alice grabbed the shot off the bar, and knocked it back, hoping Sam didn't see that her hands were shaking harder than his. Her eyes stung, and she told herself it was just the whiskey burning its way down her throat. She clenched her hands into fists, knowing that Sam wouldn't assume that, and she couldn't convince herself it was anything but a bald-faced lie.

"You're wrong!" Sam retorted hotly. His eyes shone with tears, but it was anger, not grief that lurked behind the unshed pools. "That can't be all!"

"Well it is!" Alice snapped mercilessly. "He's dead, and there's nothing you or me can fucking do about it!"

"You wouldn't say that if you knew what- If you knew where-"

Sam cut off and turned away from her furiously, his jaw twitching.

"What don't I know?" Alice demanded, her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Sam took a breath to steady himself, and spoke without meeting her eyes.

"Dean's in hell," he said quietly.

The words came like a slap in the face for Alice.

"Don't say that!" she growled. "That's not true. You don't know what you're talking about. Dean never-"

"What, he never did anything to deserve it?" Sam interrupted her.

"Yeah!" Alice spat. "Why would you even-"

"Because it's true!" Sam shot back. "Dean _is_ in hell!"

"How?" Alice demanded in disbelief.

"A few months ago, I died," Sam said. "Gone. Toast. That's all she friggin' wrote. Then Dean-"

Sam cut off again, this time to chuckle wryly.

"Dean, fucking genius that he is, decided to sell his soul at the crossroads for my life," Sam finished. "In keeping with family tradition, I guess."

Alice would have punched him for telling her if she wasn't frozen in horror. How could he sit there and talk about it like that? Laugh?

 _He doesn't know,_ she thought. _He has a vague idea of what hell is. He has no idea what's happening to Dean._

"So you see," Sam said, ignoring Alice's expression, "he can't be 'just dead'. Revenge can't be all there is, because we have to rescue him."

"Operation hellsnatch," Alice mumbled absently, too shocked to feel anything. "Grabbing a forfeit soul from the jaws of perdition. Won't this be interesting."

"So you'll do it?" Sam pressed. "You'll help me find the trickster? Make him fix this?"

Alice shook her head as she waved the bartender over.

"Loki can't fix this," she said, her tone dead as the man poured her a line of shots, apparently tired of the back and forth.

"There has to be something he can do," Sam insisted. "If he can't just... rewind this, he can use a wormhole. We can stop this from happening."

Alice rolled her eyes at him.

"Yeah, and then we get timeline management all over our asses for changing the past," she snorted.

Sam frowned. He remembered her mentioning something about timeline management before, but it had been years ago, right before he and Dean had made it back to their time. At the moment though, Sam wasn't all that interested in knowing who or what timeline management was.

"We have to try," Sam said, begging now. "There has to be something he can do. Alice... please, I don't want to do this alone."

Alice turned to look at him, and saw the pain written all over his features. She wanted to tell him he _couldn't_ do it alone. Sam Winchester couldn't track a trickster if it left a breadcrumb trail for him, much less trap one.

 _You've got nothing better to do anyway,_ she told herself numbly.

Outside, sirens blared as two police cars raced into view.

"Fine," Alice mumbled, knocking back a final shot, and getting to her feet. "But you have to bust me out of jail first."

"It's a deal, Smith," Sam said.

For once, Alice was too emotionally drained to snap at him for using her last name.


	16. The Old, Old Coyote

Sam was as good as his word and Alice was out of police custody before morning. Unlike the last time Alice and Sam had busted out of a county jail together, there were no casualties. They crossed the border into Mexico, Sam with a fake passport and Alice stowed in the trunk. Traffic entering the US was screened extensively, but the Mexican customs guards were much less zealous and Sam breezed past the checkpoint with no trouble. He drove a few blocks and parked on the side of the road to let Alice out of the trunk.

"I still don't see why we couldn't just find an abandoned church in the US," Sam said as Alice straightened.

"This one's close," Alice started checking off reasons on her fingers, "We already knew where it is, this gets me effectively off the grid... oh yeah, and booze is really cheap this side of the border, if memory serves."

Sam snorted, and climbed back in the driver's seat. He had a feeling that the last reason was prevalent in this case.

"Which street again?" Sam asked.

"15th," Alice replied as she popped open the glove compartment.

"There's no booze in there," Sam warned her. Alice hmmphed and paid him no mind. To her dismay, he was right.

"Is there anything to drink at all in this damn car?" Alice demanded gruffly, poking around under her seat.

"Don't think so," Sam replied.

"Shit. Stop there real fast," Alice said, pointing to a store up ahead.

"I thought we were going to summon the trickster," Sam said pointedly.

"We are."

"So is it really a good idea to be drunk for that?" Sam questioned.

"I doubt I will be," Alice said unhappily. "Just let me run in for something, will you?"

"Fine," Sam conceded, pulling into the parking lot. He stopped the car in front of the building and Alice held her hand out.

"What?" he asked.

"The cops took my money," Alice said by way of explanation.

Sam shot her a critical glance.

"What?" Alice demanded. "Come on, call it a loan!"

"A loan," Sam said forcefully, slapping a twenty into her waiting hand.

"Don't worry, I'll share with you," Alice assured him.

"Hey, one of us has to drive," Sam pointed out.

"Well you don't _have_ to have any," Alice rolled her eyes, stepping out of the car.

Sam waited for her impatiently, the two minutes she spent in the store dragging for him. Finally, she emerged with a brown paper bag. It clinked loudly as she climbed back into the car.

"That's... a lot of booze for twenty bucks," Sam observed, peeking into the bag.

"Like I said, it's cheap down here."

She cracked a bottle open as Sam started driving and the smell hit him a second later.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, wrinkling his nose and cringing away from Alice. "What the hell is that?"

"Sierra Silver," Alice said, sniffing the acrid liquid.

"It smells like lighter fluid and piss," Sam said with an expression of absolute disgust. "Are you really about to drink that?"

"Hell yes," Alice said, though she was taking an awfully long time examining the bottle. "I had a friend called Riley. After I knew you, but before I died. You know, I wonder if she's still around?"

Alice trailed off thoughtfully and took another whiff of the strong smelling alcohol.

"Anyway, she drank this stuff when she wanted to get really fucked up," Alice explained.

"You want to get really fucked up?" Sam questioned.

"I want to get buzzed," Alice retorted. "Alright, here goes."

She took a tentative sip of the tequila and almost spat it back out. Sam watched with raised eyebrows as she forced herself to swallow the stuff.

"Alice, I think you're probably supposed to dilute that," he said, glancing at the bottle. Unfortunately, he couldn't read Spanish, so he couldn't discern the alcohol's proof.

"Whoo!" Alice exclaimed, shaking herself and grimacing. "Yeah, I think you probably are!"

She took another sip, swallowing it more easily this time, though her sour expression didn't fade.

"Yeesh! Oh my fucking god! Gah! Riley, why?" Alice gasped. She cleared her throat and shook her head. "Well if this shit doesn't get me wasted, nothing will. I'll be completely screwed for the rest of my life. I'll just have to be sober forever."

"That's wonderful, Alice," Sam said. "Look, can you wait to get wasted until after we deal with the summoning ritual?"

"Fine," Alice agreed.

In spite of this, she kept sneaking sips of the sierra silver, each attempt followed by a few loud curse words and the occasional coughing fit.

With all the commotion, it wasn't until they actually reached the church that Sam realized they had neither chicken nor chocolate to offer the trickster.

"Crap!" he swore, examining the church while options flew through his mind.

It had once been a moderately impressive cathedral, but the building was now a shell of scorched stone, singed, rotting wood and smashed, blackened glass. Alice had heard about it during a brief exchange with one of the cops who arrested her. The church had burned down nearly fifty years ago and had since passed into local legend on both sides of the border due to the mysterious circumstances under which it was destroyed.

"What's wrong?" Alice asked.

"We've got nothing to offer the son of a bitch," Sam said, gazing at the church.

"Not entirely true," Alice said. Sam glanced at her in confusion, and she held up her tequila. "If you won't drink with me, maybe he will."

Sam shrugged.

"Could work," he said.

"Let's get down to business.".

It turned out she and Sam had a little work to do. The floor was covered in half a century's worth of rotting leaves, garbage and other debris, which they had to clear before they could lay out the containment lines. By the time they had a clean area large enough for the ritual, they were both covered in muck.

Sam helped Alice draw the containment circles, but she insisted on doing all the spell work herself.

"No offense, Winchester, but I'm pretty much the world's leading expert on this by now," she said by way of explanation.

Sam stood a few feet outside the circle, while Alice took her place in the inner circle, leaving a bottle of Sierra Silver in the outer ring. Both clutched pine stakes, Alice holding hers behind her back while Sam brandished his openly. She launched into the incantation, her words cutting through the silence and leaving tension thick in their wake.

Alice finished the chant and Sam stiffened as a man appeared before them. His back was turned to Sam, but Alice's expression told the younger Winchester all he needed to know.

"Who the hell are you?" Alice demanded with a frown of consternation.

The man in the circle turned to take in his surroundings and Sam saw that he was Mexican.

"Lo que en el mundo?" the man exclaimed, twirling in a full circle. He was tall, admittedly good-looking in a well-fitted burgundy suit. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties.

"Alice, what's going on?" Sam asked.

"It's some kind of trick," Alice said, though she didn't look too certain to Sam.

"Who are you?" Sam asked the man, who seemed to have recovered from his initial shock.

"Eso es muy lindo," the man said, rolling his eyes. He gestured to the protective circle. "Usted, evidentemente, ya sabe."

"English, amigo," Alice snapped. The man turned to her, a hint of amusement glinting in his eyes.

"Por que? Usted entiende lo que estoy diciendo, por que con la rudeza?" the man shot back.

"Spanish isn't my thing," Alice replied. She shifted her grip on the pine stake and flipped it into view. "We either do this in English, or our other mutually understood language."

"Okay, okay," the man said, holding his hands up. "I gotta ask though, what you got against my native tongue?"

"Drop the act," Sam snapped, stalking closer.

"Sam, stay out of the circle," Alice reminded him. "Don't forget-"

"Who he is? Don't worry, that's not likely," Sam growled without taking his eyes off the man. The trickster.

Loki.

The thing that killed his brother.

"Don't do anything stupid," Alice cautioned gravely.

The man glanced from Sam, to Alice, then back.

"I don't do this a lot, but I'll admit, I've got no clue what's going on here," he said. "Did, uh... did I sleep with your wife?"

The question caught Sam completely off guard.

"What?" he asked blankly.

"Sister then?" the man went on. He eyed Alice and winked. "I know it wasn't you, chica. I'd have remembered a hot mama like you. Not to mention it would have been the best night of your life, so chances are you wouldn't be looking to kill me for it."

"Alice, is it a trick?" Sam asked warily.

"Who are you?" Alice asked

The man sniffed indignantly.

"Why should I tell you?" he demanded. "You call me here in _Norwegian_ , don't even bother to bring me any presents, then insist that we use your language for this exchange... so far you haven't exactly been what I'd call accommodating."

"Actually, we brought an offering," Alice said, nodding to the bottle of tequila on the ground behind the man.

He turned and seemed to notice it for the first time.

"Huh," he said, bending to pick it up. He examined it and nodded. "Not bad, not bad. You still used that gross nordico mierda to summon me."

"Well what would you have preferred?" Alice asked, sounding a bit annoyed.

"Espanol, hermana!" the man exclaimed, though he seemed to be more amused than upset.

"Great, I'll remember that for next time," Alice snarked. "Are you gonna tell us your name, or not?"

"Mmm," the man considered. "Maybe. What's in it for me?"

"Alice, we're wasting our time," Sam spat, advancing further. "It's Loki, he's just playing us."

"Whoa, whoa, I'm who now?" the man said, sounding partly alarmed and partly offended.

"Loki," Alice repeated for clarification. "Unless you aren't..."

"Que?! Como es posible que sea posible confundir-" the man seemed to remember himself and switched back to English. "What do I look like? Some kind of half-baked two-bit mentira saco de basura nordico?"

"If you aren't, there's an easy way to prove it," Alice said.

"You know, I got out of bed this morning thinking I wasn't going to have to deal with insults from los ignorantes," the man said. "But if it isn't one disrespectful gringo, it's another, huh?"

"Look, if you don't start talking fast, you're heading six feet down with a pine stake in your chest and a rock on your grave that's got Loki carved into it," Sam said hotly.

Alice held her hands up, her instincts kicking in.

"Sam, cool it," she insisted, before addressing the man. "Mira, siento mucho todo esto. Te ves tan buen humor, asi que voy a asumir que no eres mas tarde Loki, verdad?"

The man's eyebrows shot up when she addressed him in Spanish.

"Chica, puedo ver por qué quería hacer esto en Inglés ahora. Su español necesita algo de trabajo," he replied. "Voy a darle a usted un poco de crédito, sin embargo, para la visualización de cortesía."

"Así que vamos a hacer Inglés?" Alice asked hopefully.

The man sighed.

"Fine," he conceded.

"So, I bought you a drink," Alice said humorously. "Can I at least get your name?"

"I like your style, chica," the man said. "Not bad, not bad."

He uncapped the tequila and took a swig without so much as blinking. Instead of being impressed, Alice just took it as confirmation that he actually was a god. The only question was whether he was the one Alice and Sam were looking for.

"This, though, is so, so bad," the man said, sniffing the alcohol. "Not quite enough for a name. How about you trade me something else instead?"

"Name for name?" Alice guessed.

The man nodded.

"Mine's rather impressive, so why don't you give me both of yours to make up the difference?" he chuckled.

"Deal," Alice said easily. "His name is Sam Winchester. I'm Alice."

The man looked Sam over, but quickly turned back to Alice.

"Alice con un solo nombre," he said thoughtfully. "But I know you have more than one name. I won't trade mine for a name and a half."

Alice's lips twitched slightly in annoyance, but she gave in anyway.

"Smith."

"Alice. Smith," the man said slowly, as if testing the words. "Such a familiar name... but where have I heard it before?"

"Beats me," Alice said. "Come on now, you owe me a name."

"Seems I do," the man sighed. He swept into a theatrical bow, and announced, "My name is Huehuecoyotl!"

He started a lively little dance and for the briefest of seconds, Alice could have sworn she heard a mariachi band playing somewhere in the distance. Huehuecoyotl winked at Alice as the music came to an abrupt halt along with his dancing.

"But you can call me Huey if the mood strikes you," he offered.

"Huehuecoyotl?" Sam repeated. "Alice, I've heard of him before."

Huehuecoyotl seemed immensely pleased at that.

"Is he a trickster?" Alice asked carefully.

"Yeah, ancient Aztec god of mischief," Sam recalled.

"And also music, song and dancing," Huehuecoyotl put in cheerily.

"How do we know it's really him though?" Sam pondered aloud, considering the deity.

"I got this," Alice said. "Do me a favor, Huey, promise you are who you say you are."

"That's an odd request, but alright," Huey grinned. "I'm promise I'm really Huehuecoyotl."

"Could be some kind of trick," Sam mused.

"I can tie him in a few knots," Alice offered. Sam frowned at her, not understanding. "Linguistic knots," Alice clarified.

"Couldn't hurt," Sam said.

"Can you promise me that you aren't Loki?" Alice asked.

"Yes," Huehuecoyotl replied.

"So do it."

"I promise I'm not Loki. Y si yo fuera usted, creo que me gustaría dejar de llamarme ese bastardo baboso."

"Sounds like you've really got it out for the guy," Alice observed.

"Hey, I get along fine with most people, but that guy..." Huehuecoyotl trailed off, and shrugged. "We always had different styles, even before..."

"Right, you're supposedly benevolent," Sam remembered. "Your tricks are harmless."

"Damn straight," Huehuecoyotl laughed. "And if any damage is done, I undo it before the day is out."

"You sound like a real stand-up guy," Alice said drily. "Sam, I think he's telling the truth. At least about not being Loki."

"Por ultimo, gracias!" Huehuecoyotl exclaimed.

"That still begs the question, what are we going to do with him?" Alice went on.

"Not sure. Think he knows where Loki is?" Sam asked.

"Probably," Alice said. "These guys get together all the time."

"Whoa now, I don't associate myself with that cuerpo arrebatando puta," Huehuecoyotl spat.

"But can you help us find him?" Sam asked.

Huehuecoyotl grinned and Alice rolled her eyes.

"Winchester, rule number one when dealing with tricksters is you don't ask them for help," she said. "Best case, you get swindled. And I'm a walking talking example of the worst case."

Huehuecoyotl examined Alice curiously after she said that.

"Did you miss the benevolent part?" Sam demanded. "Besides, you can make him promise not to trick us."

"Sam, that would be like ordering you not to breathe!" Alice cried in exasperation.

"Alice, Huehuecoyotl might be the best chance we have of fixing this," Sam entreated.

"Hey!" Huehuecoyotl interrupted, snapping his fingers loudly to draw their attention. He pointed at Alice, meeting her eyes.

"Alice Smith. I know where I've heard that name before," he said. He approached the inner circle, getting as close to Alice as he could before stopping. He studied the shifting colors of Alice's eyes, a grin spreading across his features.

"Yeah, poco falta tocó por trucos," he said. "You're the kid that killed Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Set off a century's worth of timeline errors, pissed off all the major players, most of the minor ones, and lost everything in the process. Then dropped off the map, gone, como un remolino de polvo cuando el viento cesa."

"So you've heard of me," Alice said casually.

"Heard of you?" Huehuecoyotl laughed. "Chica, you're trickster legend. You're the girl imps tell their cute little green-cheeked offspring about before they stuff them into their putrid mushroom boxes."

"Well, you kill enough tricksters I guess it's inevitable you'll turn into the monster under their bed," Alice said blithely.

"El monstruo debajo de la cama? Hell no, chica!" Huehuecoyotl exclaimed. "With all the trouble you caused? Every little Alborotador wants to grow up to be just like the trickster-touched."

Alice just stared at Huehuecoyotl, not sure how she was supposed to feel about that.

"You're telling me I'm some kind of role model for you freaks?" she finally managed.

"Ha, not for me," Huehuecoyotl said. "Too much death, destruction. The worst thing I ever did was force an Absarokan chief to wed a buffalo and I even annulled the marriage after a few days. Here, I wrote a song about it."

Huehuecoyotl produced a guitar, seemingly from thin air, and started playing an upbeat tune.

" _El jefe de la guerra y el buuuufaloooooo_ ," he shouted tunelessly, a drummer, classical pianist and xylophonist appearing behind him. " _Casarse en un dia de veraaaa-aaaanooooo! Que hermoso, la vista peluuu-uuu-uuudooooo! El novio en lo alto de su novia!_ "

Huehuecoyotl kept bellowing, while the musicians behind him attacked their various instruments merrily. The result was a discordant, mangled cacophony that might have passed for music if everyone present was shit-faced drunk.

"Huehue! Huey! Coyotl! Hey!" Alice called over the din, waving her arms in an attempt to get his attention. Huehuecoyotl ignored her and continued.

" _Vea lo que trae la guerraaaaa, cuando se olvidaaaa la luuuuucha, y las llanuras y carpas unios!_ "

Alice looked to Sam for help, to find him grimacing and trying not to cringe away. He obviously didn't find Huehuecoyotl's ear-splitting ballad any more enjoyable than she.

"Sam! Sam!"

Unlike Huehuecoyotl, Sam noticed that Alice was calling him and got as close to her as he could without breaching the circle.

"You never learned ASL, did you?!" Alice yelled over the 'music'.

"What?!" Sam called back.

"DID YOU EVER LEARN ASL?!"

"NO!"

"GREAT!"

Alice shook her head and turned back to watch Huehuecoyotl's performance. She would have to speak with Sam after the song was over and while Huey was listening.

Not only was the song horrendous, it was long. Alice didn't keep an exact count, but she figured it had around twenty stanzas. She was bad at speaking and understanding Spanish under the best of circumstances, which made it more or less impossible for her to figure out exactly what was happening in any one verse. From what she could make out though, the Chief's marriage to the buffalo was a condition of his penance to Huehuecoyotl for some horrible offense and most of the song detailed in excruciatingly lewd, explicit terms the jaw-droppingly disgusting farce that passed for a wedding night.

" _Finalmente se puede ir a casa! Y el puede tomar un nueva espoooooosaaaaaaa!"_

The music cut off sharply and Huehuecoyotl took a bow so deep that his forhead brushed the moist, sooty ground. When he rose, he had a black spot on his forehead that neither Sam nor Alice were inclined to point out.

"Well?" Huehuecoyotl asked, out of breath and grinning from ear to ear. The musicians and their instruments disappeared, much to Sam and Alice's relief.

"That was..." Alice trailed off, lacking the words to express her horror.

"Something else?" Sam offered, rubbing his right ear.

"Glad you liked it, cazador," Huehuecoyotl said cheerily.

"Right," Alice said, rolling her eyes. "Hold that thought, amigo."

She turned to Sam.

"So, I think it's safe to say he isn't Loki," she started. "What do we do with him?"

"Ask him if he'll help us," Sam replied immediately.

"I will _gladly_ help you," Huehuecoyotl grinned.

Alice groaned.

"Sam, no," she moaned. "That's not how you do it."

"What-"

"I'm sorry," she said loudly, interrupting Sam's question. She turned back to Huehuecoyotl, carefully arranging her features into a regretful mask. "You know how it is though, Huey. You're a trickster, we're hunters... I'm afraid we're gonna have to do this one by the book."

"You chiflado have a book?" Huehuecoyotl asked, eyes twinkling in a way that told Alice he knew her game.

"Yeah, and chapter four says we've gotta stake you, no matter how good of a musician you are," Alice said sarcastically.

"Aw, chica, I'm hurt," Huehuecoyotl said, matching Alice's mocking tone as he put a hand on his chest. "Surely you can find it in your heart to cut poor old Huey a break?"

Alice tsked sadly.

"Sorry, no can do," she said sorrowfully.

"Alice-"

She shot Sam a look that screamed for him to shut up. The trick in dealing with Tricksters, Alice knew, was to turn things around until it was them asking for her help. If Sam kept talking, that plan would be shot to shit.

"Come on now, I'd make it worth your while," Huehuecoyotl smirked.

"You can't pay me enough to make it worth compromising my morals," Alice said.

Outside the circle, Sam facepalmed.

"What?" Alice demanded of him. "I have _some_ morals."

"Everyone wants something, chica," Huehuecoyotl pressed.

"Not me," Alice replied coolly.

"I'm not too proud to beg," Huehuecoyotl said. "You might not want anything, but I do want something. In fact, I want a lot of things. A thousand years worth of things. Another thousand years of drinking and singing and making love to beautiful women. If I can't buy it, I'll take it on loan."

"Hmm." Alice pretended to consider. "A loan like that needs collateral. Lots of collateral."

"How's a thousand years of debt?" Huehuecoyotl proposed.

Alice chuckled.

"I won't be around to collect all that," she pointed out.

"Not personally chica, but your kids and their kids and their grandkids'll be pretty happy," Huehuecoyotl said.

Alice laughed outright at that.

"Sure, 'cause hunters always have litters of kids," she snickered.

"You never know," Huehuecoyotl shrugged. "But hey, usted es el banquero. You don't like those terms, set some new ones."

"Three debts," Alice said.

"Three debts for a thousand years?" Huehuecoyotl grinned. "Sounds like I'm getting one hell of a deal."

"You gonna swear on it before it expires?" Alice asked.

"Sure," Huehuecoyotl said solemnly. "Alice Smith, I owe you three debts in exchange for one thousand years. I swear that whatever you ask of me to the end of fulfilling these debts, if it be within my powers, I shall do."

"Holy shit," Sam mumbled from outside the circle. "Does this mean we can ask him to-"

"Not yet!" Alice snapped. "One more promise, Huey."

"Will this take one of the debts?" he asked hopefully.

"You wish," Alice shot back.

"Fine, what is this last promise you want?" Huehuecoyotl asked.

"Shouldn't it be obvious?" Alice asked. "I'm gonna need you to promise you won't fuck with me or Sam."

"That I won't fuck with you?" Huehuecoyotl echoed, raising his eyebrows. "That's an awfully loose promise, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Alice confirmed. "It's very versatile, which is just the kind of promise I need to feel safe when dealing with Tricksters."

"Absolutamente increible," Huehuecoyotl said. "Fine. I promise I won't fuck with your or Sam. Happy, Trickster-Touched?"

"Meh," Alice shrugged. "I've been less happy, I guess."

"Usted es una verdadera pieza de trabajo, chica," Huehuecoyotl chuckled. "So, you letting me out of here?"

Alice considered for a moment more, in earnest this time, but she could think of nothing that would cause them trouble if they released Huehuecoyotl. Finally, she nodded to Sam, who crouched down to rub away part of the outer circle.

"So, are you going to cash in on any of those debts, or can I be on my way?" Huehuecoyotl asked.

"Depends," Alice said. "Can you tell us where Loki is?"

Huehuecoyotl sighed beleaguredly.

"Oh, chica, you've got no clue how many worms are wriggling around in that can," he told her. "In the most technical sense, what you're looking for doesn't even exist anymore."

Alice's brow knit in confusion.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Sam snapped, his tone equal parts outrage, suspicion, and disbelief.

Huehuecoyotl opened his mouth to explain, but snapped it shut again quickly.

"Hmm. No, that won't work," he said, expression thoughtful. "Ah! There's a... mmm... no, can't do that either. Maldita pelusa cara..."

Finally, he shrugged.

"Sorry amigos," he said, sounding genuinely regretful. "As much as I'd love to see that culo nórdico get what's coming to him, there's not much more I can tell you."

"Why not?" Sam demanded.

"Es muy complicado," Huehuecoyotl groaned. "Let's just say... little miss trickster-touched here isn't the only one who can forge an unbreakable promise."

"Are you trying to say Loki made you promise you wouldn't tell us where he is?" Alice asked, immediately regretting her decision to have Sam break the circle.

"Nothing that specific, unfortunately," Huehuecoyotl said. "If you're looking for Loki, I can say, cien por ciento, you will not find him. No, chica, I know what you're really looking for, even if you don't."

"But you can't tell us," she ventured.

"I'm afraid not."

Huehuecoyotl wagged a finger at them.

"The other gods won't be able to help you either," he went on. "Half of those payasos ciegos haven't got a clue about 'Loki'", he stopped to make air quotes around the Trickster's name. "And the other half, like me, have been sworn to silence."

"If none of you can help us, who can?" Sam asked.

"People with more power and knowledge than us," Huehuecoyotl told him. He reconsidered his words and promptly amended them. "Aunque este último punto es discutible."

He pointed to Alice.

"Chica, you got friends in high places, no? Or did you burn all those bridges?"

"To a crisp," Alice winced. "I assume you're talking about Angels? Of the Christian variety?"

"That's them. The highest of the mighty," Huehuecoyotl chuckled.

"When you go up that high, all I have is enemies."

"Como dicen las historias. Ah, well... I don't see how I can offer you any help with your hunt," Huehuecoyotl shrugged. He glanced at his wristwatch. "And believe it or not, I have a pretty busy day planned. Three dates and a concert, so, uh..."

"Don't worry, we'll call you when we want to cash in on those favors," Alice assured him.

"Maravilloso, maravilloso," he said, shaking Alice's hand firmly. "Nice doing, uh... business, with you, chica."

He turned to Sam, expression earnest as he extended him the same parting courtesy.

"By the way, my condolences," he said.

Before Sam could ask if he knew about Dean, and how, Huehuecoyotl vanished, leaving behind the distinct scent of tamarinds, the faint echo of jovial, discordant mariachi music, and far more questions for Alice and Sam to ponder than they had crossed the border with.


	17. Eternity

Alice and Sam were both silent as they gathered their equipment and prepared to head out, each still pondering the implications of their chance encounter with Huehuecoyotl.

"What the hell was he talking about?" Sam finally asked as they loaded up. He wasn't entirely sure it was the right question, but it was the one that kept circling viciously in his mind.

"I'm not sure," Alice replied. "But I think he was trying to imply that Loki, or whoever it is that arranged Dean's death, isn't really a trickster. Which would explain why the summoning ritual didn't force him to show up, and we got Huey instead."

"So you think it's true?"

"I think there's a distinct possibility that it's not entirely horse shit."

"Okay, so if Loki isn't a trickster, then what is he?"

"Good question. Wanna hear a better one? Whatever this thing really is, why does it want us to think it's the Norse god of mischief?"

Alice sighed while Sam considered her words.

"You need to make some calls," she said decisively. "Any hunters you know, any other useful contacts you have... see if you can find anything on Loki."

"And you?"

"I have a few numbers," Alice said, with a noted lack of enthusiasm.

"But...?"

"But given the circumstances, I don't know how good of an idea it is for me to be calling other hunters," Alice explained. "We both know I wasn't exactly popular before, and now..."

The rest went without saying. Now that she was a monster, a ghost, something that anyone could justify hunting, the risk of someone tracking her down and killing her had increased tenfold.

"Anyway, the last time I touched base with any of these people was... seven, eight years ago? I don't even know if any of them are still alive."

"So your plan is, what, fish around and /hope/ we find something useful?"

"There's nothing else we _can_ do," Alice pointed out. "We don't even know _what_ we're hunting at this point. We don't know how to find it, and even if we did, we don't know what it'll take to kill it, or even if we _should_ kill it."

Sam pursed his lips, knowing she was right.

"We need to regroup," she went on, climbing into the passenger seat. "Get a room, make the calls, get our bearings, and come up with some kind of game plan."

She peered into her paper bag, sighing wistfully at the sight of the sadly uningested sierra silvers that still clinked around quietly, invitingly.

"And I should really be sober for the planning phase," she lamented, folding the bag over and stashing it beneath the seat.

An hour later, Alice discovered that Sam's 'contacts' pretty much consisted of two people, a Bobby Singer and an Ellen Harvelle. The woman's name sounded familiar, and Sam placed her as the owner of the Roadhouse, which, he informed her, had unfortunately been burned to the ground a few months prior to Alice's resurrection.

"Shame," she said. "I mean, I didn't frequent the place, but it was handy if you needed to drum up hunters in force every once in a while."

The memories that surfaced in reference to the Roadhouse, however, were not the most pleasant Alice had, so she quickly shrugged them off and moved on.

"Anyway, that's it? Two people?" she demanded.

"Excuse me for my limited connections," Sam snapped. "It's just that everyone I know keeps _dying_!"

From his tone, Alice could tell immediately that she had unwittingly struck an exposed nerve.

"Yeesh, sorry!" Alice groaned, more in exasperation than sympathy. "Excuse me, Winchester! That must be _so_ hard... I can't even _imagine_ what that must be like. You know. _Losing everyone you care about._ "

The sarcasm in her voice was so strong that Sam actually flinched a little.

"Right," he said, a hint of sheepishness creeping into his demeanor as he realized that, just for a moment, he'd forgotten that Alice had gone through just about as much shit as he had.

"Fuck it," Alice growled, scrawling a few numbers on a scrap of paper. "Call these, and don't mention my damn name."

"And if they ask where I got their numbers?" Sam asked, inspecting the list as Alice made for the door.

"You'll think of something," she replied blithely.

"Where are you going?"

"To get my tequila. None of these people are going to get us a lead fast enough for me being drunk to be a problem."

Alice's cynicism was more than justified. She had given Sam five numbers, and out of those, four were out of service, and one went to voicemail. Ellen called back to tell him she had feelers out, but made a point of saying that she wasn't optimistic.

The last call Sam made was to Bobby Singer. His hands shook as he dialled the familiar number. Bobby was close, almost family. Telling him what happened wouldn't be easy.

"Singer scrap and salvage," came the gruff greeting.

"Bobby? It's Sam."

"Sam? It's been a while, boy," Bobby said with his trademark tone of gruff joviality. "I'm guessing you and your knucklehead brother are in a pickle of some kind? Or is this the first social call I've ever gotten from a Winchester?"

Sam swallowed the lump rising in his throat, struggling for words in spite of the fact that he'd already spoken them to Ellen not ten minutes earlier.

At his back, Alice slipped into the room silently, toting her paper bag. The atmosphere was thick, and she immediately knew she'd walked in on something sensitive. She briefly considered leaving, but fat raindrops were beginning to pelt the pavement just beyond the door, discouraging her from that course. Instead, she shut the door quietly, held her bag tight to keep it from clinking, and settled at the table to Sam's back.

"Bobby, this isn't- I, uh... this is about Dean. He, uh...he-"

Sam's voice broke, and Alice got the feeling that whoever was on the other end understood what that meant.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed softly, answering a question Alice hadn't heard. "Trickster."

There was a long pause.

"I am."

And another.

"It's not just revenge... this thing might be able to undo what it did," Sam said. "Yes! ... I know, Bobby, but-"

The person on the other end, Bobby, cut Sam off, and Alice could make out a deep, impassioned voice through the speaker, though she couldn't understand what it was saying.

"He'd do it for me if our places were reversed," Sam said ardently, uncowed by the other man's tone. Bobby started to say something, but it was Sam's turn to interrupt.

"I don't give a damn what Dean wanted!" he practically shouted.

Alice knew Bobby was talking, but he seemed to be making an attempt to stay calm, and she could no longer hear his voice.

"Yes, that's exactly right!" Sam said. "And you know why?! Because it was a stupid choice! I didn't ask him to do that for me!"

Another pause filled with soft words.

"You're right... I would," Sam said, quieter now, but no less adamant. "If that's what it takes."

Another short pause.

"Yes."

Bobby sighed so loudly in surrender that Alice heard it clearly from five feet away.

"Thank you, Bobby. Yeah... okay... Not for a while. No, I'm... Not exactly. I'm with someone. Another hunter. No. I don't know if I should say... No! They're... an old friend of Dean's. Just... I'll head up when we're done here. I don't know, maybe... probably. Okay, Bobby. I will. You too."

Alice gave him a few minutes to collect himself after he hung up.

"I didn't hear you getting any information from Mr. Singer," she noted drily.

"That's because I didn't," Sam said shortly. "I'm heading up to see him personally after... after Dean's body is released."

Alice winced at the reminder, grief pulsing fresh and raw and threatening to break her with its potency. She drowned it with a long swig of the putrid Mexican alcohol, fighting to keep from retching at the taste and incredible strength of the liquor.

"Are you going to come with me?" Sam asked.

She considered for a moment.

"This Singer character... he's a hunter?"

"Yeah. But he's not..."

Sam struggled to find the right words.

"He's pretty, uh... laid back about it."

"So you don't think he'll come at me with salt and silver and sanctified iron?"

"Not if I talk to him first."

"Uh-huh. And if you talk to him and he still wants to send me packing back to the not-so-great beyond?"

"He won't."

"But if he does..."

Alice's words, Sam discerned, were a warning. A hanging threat.

_'I'll put him in the ground, even if he is your friend.'_

"Alice, he's been like a Father to me and Dean," Sam said.

She narrowed her eyes at him, reading into his tone and easily finding the double meaning in his words.

_'If it comes down to a fight, I'll side with Bobby over you.'_

"In that case, you should probably go see Bobby Singer on your own," she told him, standing.

"You're going now?"

"No reason to stick around," she shrugged. "I gotta get back across the border, get my stuff back... I'll probably have to shift a few times to get it all done."

"But we're meeting up again, right?"

"What for?"

"I need your help!" Sam said, as if it should have been obvious.

"With what? There's no Trickster, Winchester!" Alice snapped. "That's what you wanted me around for, right? My expertise."

She snorted when Sam didn't reply, taking his silence to mean that she was right. Again, she made to leave, but Sam stopped her just as she wrapped her fingers around the doorknob.

"What about Dean?"

She tightened her grip on the cold metal handle.

"I'll get him out. When I find out how, you'll be the first to know."

"That's not what I mean," Sam said. "What about Dean's... what about the funeral?"

He watched her carefully, but couldn't see any reaction to his words. Still, the seconds dragged on as he waited for her response.

"Take care, Sam," she finally said.

She walked out into the rain and left him alone.

Sam almost let her go.

Until he heard the shrieks.

* * *

Alice could feel the alcohol working in her system, but the realization that she could still get drunk didn't lift her spirits. She finished off her third bottle of tequila as she entered a deserted alleyway.

 _Nothing to drink in hell_ , she thought with a shudder.

Not unless you counted the acid they poured down your throat sometimes.

 _Hey, bitch_ , came a voice from the deep recesses of her mind, _Gotta wonder what they're doing to him right now. In hell. Can you imagine?_

 _Shut up,_ Alice thought, directing the sentiment at Danny.

_You're so pathetic. Everything about you.. your stupid little crush..._

_Shut up._

_Drinking to make you feel like you aren't weak..._

_Shut up!_

_Because you are weak, Smith. You're weak, and helpless._

_SHUT UP!_

_You can't SAVE anyone! Not your grandmother, not your sister, not your stupid boyfriend!_

Alice seethed with rage. How the hell did Danny know all that?

 _Because you're so weak!_ he taunted in reply to the thought she hadn't realized he would be able to hear. _You think you have it all together? That you're **so** focused, you can keep me out of your memories? **Please,** don't make me laugh! You're a wreck! You're an absolute mess!_

Alice dropped the tequila bottle as a sharp pain built behind her eyes. She grit her teeth and groaned, bringing her hands up to fist them in her rain-soaked hair.

_Shut the FUCK UP!_

_WHY?! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST SHUT ME OUT OF MY OWN HEAD?! YOU THINK YOU CAN LIVE **MY** LIFE AND PRETEND LIKE I'M NOT EVEN HERE?!_

"SHUT UP!" Alice screamed, rage and frustration boiling up inside her as Danny kept yelling. She punched the brick of the alley wall, needing to hurt something, kill something. What she really wanted was to kill Danny, but she couldn't do that.

She really wanted to kill Loki, the trickster, whatever he was, but she couldn't do that either.

_THAT'S RIGHT, **SMITH**! YOU CAN'T KILL ME OR HIM, JUST LIKE YOU COULDN'T KILL RUBY! YOU KNOW WHY?! YOU KNOW WHY, SMITH?! YOU'RE WEAK! WEAK! WEAK, WEAK, WEAK, AND HELPLESS!_

Her shouted attempts to silence Danny deteriorated into animalistic, agonized shrieks. She knocked over a tin trash can, denting it as she vented her fury onto the malleable metal, bending it out of shape as she kicked and screamed. The pain in her hand from its impact with the wall fed her anger, fanning flames that already had too much fuel. Alice kept going, letting reason fall away as she assaulted the trash can. She didn't stop until someone grabbed her, and she fought them at first, before she realized it was Sam.

"Alice! Alice, hey! It's okay, it's okay! Hey!"

Her screams turned to ragged sobs, and instead of holding her back, he was holding her up, keeping her from collapsing to the ground.

"It's alright," he assured her softly. His embrace was tight, his body searing hot against her chilled flesh, and his voice strangely soothing to Alice's despair. "It's gonna be okay."

 _Pathetic,_ Danny taunted.

For once, Alice agreed with the shifter.

"I'm fucking fine!" she growled, shoving Sam away.

"You're not fine!" Sam shot back. "You just murdered an innocent garbage can! Look at your hand!"

Alice didn't need to look. She could feel the scraped skin hanging from her knuckles, sharp pain where flesh was exposed and a dull, throbbing ache in her bones all the way up to her shoulder. The rain was coming down in a torrent around them, and the water flowing down Alice's arm sent blood streaming with it to the ground, where it disappeared against the blacktop.

"You're not fine, alright?" Sam went on. "And acting like you are isn't going to make it true!"

"So what, I should just curl up in the corner and start crying?" she snarled.

"No! But you don't shut everything off and run away from your problems either!"

"Well then what _should_ I do, Winchester?!" she snapped.

"Work through it."

Alice wanted to stay angry. She wanted to be pissed at Sam for telling her how to run her life. She wanted to sneer and taunt him the way Danny was taunting her, but her rage was slowly ebbing away, exhaustion taking its place. She held onto it desperately, afraid of what she might feel if it wasn't there.

"Work through what?!" she hissed. The attempt at hostility sounded flat and half-hearted, even to her ears. "You think I-I'm, what... all... torn up? Over some guy I hardly knew?!"

"That's sure what it looks like it, Alice."

Sam's tone was completely earnest, not a trace of snark or judgement.

"I didn't care about your brother," she said, the words sounding choked and hardly making it out of her mouth to begin with.

_Liar._

She didn't even know if that was Danny's thought or hers.

"Are you sure?" Sam pressed, gentle and insistent at once. "Because I know you and Dean had..."

"Had what?" Alice demanded.

"Something," Sam finished, after struggling to find the right words.

"Something," Alice repeated harshly. "Sounds really profound, Winchester. I don't know what you story you were following, but there was nothing there! Maybe-maybe there was a stupid, lonely kid with some dumb crush on a guy who- God damn it!"

Alice had no idea why she was telling him anything at all instead of walking away, but she couldn't make herself stop.

"Even if I _did_ feel something for him, it was pathetic, and naive, and one-sided as hell!"

"That's not true!" Sam said hotly "He looked for you! After we got back? The only time I've seen him like that is with family that's gone missing. He loved you."

Her head swam with drunkenness and emotion that seemed strangely far away, as if it belonged to someone else. Danny was still yelling in the back of her head, and ignoring him almost took up more energy than did listening to him.

 _You're drunk and making a fool of yourself_ , she thought wearily.

Sarcasm was her only recourse. She needed to get herself under control before she said something _really_ damaging.

"Right," she sneered. "And uh, how long had we known each other when he supposedly, 'fell in love' with me? A month? A month and a half?"

"Sometimes that's all it takes," Sam said plainly. "I've fallen in love in less time than that."

"Right."

"Even if you don't believe that he loved you, can you deny that you loved him?" Sam asked.

"Technically, yes."

"But would you be telling the truth?" Sam asked.

Alice didn't respond to that, and Sam sighed.

"Look," he began, "I get it. More than you know, I really do... and I'm not... I'm not trying to tell you how to run your life, or patronise you, it's... it's just..."

He struggled to find the right words, and Alice let him.

"I know Dean wouldn't have wanted me to let you..."

His eyes flitted to Alice's mangled hand, and she shuddered as a fresh wave of pain pulsed through her arm.

"He would have wanted us to look out for each other."

"I can look out for myself just fine on my own."

"I know you _can._ My point is that... this time... you don't _have_ to."

Strangely, Alice found that she believed him. His eyes were wide and sincere through the sheets of rain separating them, locked onto hers through the gaps in the hair plastered to his face by the downpour.

 _Ha! You're gonna trust this guy?_ Danny snickered in disbelief. Even worse than Alice hearing his thoughts, worse than knowing that he could hear hers, was the fact she could feel his malice, the burning rage and unbelievable ill-will he wished her.

So it threw Alice when she realized that he thought she would be more miserable on her own than with Sam Winchester. If there was anything that indicated she should stay with him, at least for a while, she supposed that was it.

Alice was quiet for a long time, and Sam had no idea what was going on in her head. She was looking him right in the eye, but he couldn't have hazarded a guess as to what she was really seeing. She looked like she was a million miles away, her distant expression frozen between shock and bewilderment.

"Why don't you at least come back in," Sam finally said, movements gentle as he reached for her smashed right fist, "... and let me patch you up?"

Alice seemed to come back to herself when he spoke, the absence vanishing from her features, though they remained locked in the same expression while he lifted her hand to inspect her knuckles.

"After, if you want, you can go your own way," he assured her.

She stared at him blankly, like she didn't understand.

"Okay?" he pressed, hoping for a response of any kind.

After a few more seconds, she finally nodded slowly.

"Yeah."

She followed him back to the hotel room, mind blank except for Danny's continued medley of whining, insults and threats, to which she paid no attention. While she dripped on the tiled floor in front of the mirror, she considered Sam as he rooted through a duffel bag at her side. A few times in her life, she had worked with hunters without becoming attached to them. More than likely, she could have that kind of cooperation with Sam. Dependability, without the liability created when someone could be used against you on an emotional level.

She was still thinking about the pros and cons of staying vs. leaving when Sam touched her hand again, her eyes idly following his face. Her train of thought was derailed when his features contorted into a mask of horrified disgust, prompting Alice to look down at her hand.

"Ugh!" Sam groaned, too shocked to do much but take a step back as the flesh sloughed off Alice's knuckles.

She sighed, and shook the rest of the flesh free, biting her lip as she consciously finished the shift that Danny's body had initiated instinctively.

"Well," she said, raising her hand to inspect it in the fluorescent light, "I suppose that's why we do these suckers with silver, huh?"

She rinsed the blood and slime from the new skin, and offered her knuckles to Sam for inspection.

"Guess so," he muttered, obviously still unsettled by the development.

He met her eyes, and a question lurked in their dark brown depths.

_'Stay or go, Smith?'_

_Ah, what the hell,_ Alice thought.

"Fine, Winchester," she said. "Where does your friend Bobby live?"

The smile that came to Sam's face at her reply to the unspoken query was half-hearted at best, but it was enough to let her know that it was the answer he'd been hoping for.

* * *

**Six Months Later**

* * *

Alice added another photograph of the trickster to the spiral notebook that was now almost full of newspaper clippings and security footage of the object of their hunt. As in most of the images they had, Loki was looking directly into the camera, features twisted into a taunting smirk that made Alice's blood boil. He was teasing them, she knew. Playing with the people who were supposed to be the predators in their extensive game of cat and mouse. Of course, the game only existed because Loki allowed it to. He could drop completely off the map at any moment. As infuriating as it was, his smug self-assurance was their only chance to catch up to him. He thought he could toy with them indefinitely, without having to worry about them ever getting close to him, and even though it drove Sam and Alice both insane, it at least left the possibility that he would one day slip up. All it took was one mistake, and they could have him.

That was the thought that kept Alice focused.

That, and a count that she kept privately, updating when Sam was away. She turned to the beginning of the notebook, and flipped up a picture taped onto the inside of the front cover, which took up most of the page. Beneath it were a series of crossed out numbers, and three long lines of tic marks at the very top of the cover. She added another tick, and crossed out the latest number, '58'. Below it, she added '59'. She frowned severely at the number, nausea twisting in her gut as it always did when she was forced to add to her morbid count.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, the phrase ritualistic at this point, but no less sincere that the first time she'd uttered it.

She heard a car driving up, saw the yellow-white flash of headlights through the curtains, and quickly flipped the picture down and closed the notebook, returning to her perusal of a web search. Sam walked into the room a moment later, clutching his side. A glance at his fingers told Alice that he was bleeding, and in no small measure.

"Did it bite you?" she asked, in reference to the werewolf he'd gone out after three hours ago.

"No. The cops interrupted us," Sam explained, voice taut as he made his way to the mirror in front of the bathroom door. "I killed it, but they didn't really understand how lucky it was for them that they didn't show up a few minutes sooner."

"'Course they didn't," she said, rising from the bed and gathering their bags. If the cops were after them, they would need to move out immediately after Sam was patched up.

Alice didn't bother offering to help him. He preferred to stitch up his own wounds, though she suspected this preference was specific to her. Whether it was her perpetually cold hands, or a simple lack of trust on his part, she couldn't say for sure.

She loaded their few bags into the car, and waited there until Sam joined her twenty minutes later.

"What have you got?" he asked, pallid from blood loss, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"He showed up in New York three days ago," Alice said, opening the notebook to the newest page, and handing it to Sam.

"He... bought a ticket to a football game on Saturday," Sam noted aloud. "Think he'll actually show up this time?"

"Probably not."

The rest went unspoken, because they both knew; futile as this chase might be, they had nothing else to go on.

"By the way, Bobby called again," Alice mentioned

"What'd he say?"

"He was just checking up. I told him you were closing the werewolf hunt," Alice said. "He's worried about you. Seems to think I'm a bad influence."

"Gee, I don't know why he would have that idea in his head," Sam said sarcastically.

"I know. Quite a harsh judge of character," she replied.

They drove in silence after that, a shared sense of grim purpose between them. The silence didn't tell, but Alice and Sam had grown close during the six months they'd spent chasing cold leads and half-eaten breadcrumb trails. Alice remembered entering the partnership with the intention of keeping Sam at arm's length, but keeping a good emotional distance from someone was easier said than done when you spent the better part of half a year within ten feet of them. Sam was very empathetic, cloyingly so at times, and this eventually extended to Alice, in spite of his many, many issues with her moral code, or lack thereof. And Alice, grudgingly, accepted the fact that she had developed a certain fondness of the younger Winchester.

Still, he wasn't the one she thought of when she gazed out at the night as they raced through it. It wasn't for his sake that she counted every second that ticked by, painfully aware of the fact that every one of them was passing very differently in hell.

Painfully aware that what felt like an eternity to her was a literal eternity to Dean.


	18. What Never Happened

Dutifully, Sam and Alice drove to New York city in their dogged pursuit of Loki. In the earlier days of their alliance, they fought over the soundtrack in the car when they traveled. Now, after so many disappointments and dead-end leads, they were both too weary for music. They let silence consume the space inside the Impala.

Once they arrived, they opted to take the most direct route into the stadium, by each purchasing a ticket to the game. Once inside, Alice quickly began improvising. Spotting a security guard, she left Sam in the bleachers in favor of following them.

"Call you if it pans out," she told him.

Sam nodded in acknowledgment, craning his neck to survey the crowd.

Alice tailed the guard out of the public eye, following him to a discrete, unmarked door in the stadium entrance hall, deserted now that everyone had found their seats. He knocked, and was admitted entrance by a second guard. The door closed behind them, but not before she got an eyeful of the rooms contents.

Alice pulled her phone out and called Sam.

"Hey. I'm not coming back. I found the surveillance room."

"You want me to come down?"

"No, stay put. I'll call you if I get eyes on Loki."

"Ok."

Alice hung up, and knocked on the door the guard had disappeared into. He answered, somewhat wearily.

"The bathrooms are down the hall to the left," he said.

"I've already been down there looking," Alice protested. "Could you show me maybe?"

"Look. That way. Straight down. To. The. _Left_. Do you know left from right?"

"Hey, look buddy, I paid good money to be here," Alice snapped. "Without loyal ball fans like me you wouldn't have a job. Is it really too much for you to take the literal one minute to walk with me and show me where the facilities are? What's going on in there that's so damn exciting, huh?"

"God Frank, just go," came a second, exasperated voice. "She's right, it's one minute, and also not worth the overdramatic complaint this broad is gonna file if you don't do it."

The guard, Frank, rolled his eyes, and stepped out to lead the way. They turned down a small side hall containing two sets of doors, labelled as mens and ladies restrooms. A quick glance upward told Alice that they were out of sight of the cameras here.

_Perfect._

She tackled Frank through the door of the mens room, quickly subduing him. Five minutes later, she walked back into the main hall, having appropriated Franks uniform and appearance.

"See, that wasn't so bad," the other guard said as he let Alice into the surveillance room. His nametag read 'Marvin.

Alice went with the safety in silence route, and just grunted in response as she sat in one of the two seats in front of the screen setup. Each was labelled with location codes, with which Alice was unfamiliar. Eventually, she managed to orient herself by finding Sam on a few screens, though there were some hallways and corridors that managed to elude placement in her mental picture of the buildings layout.

Marvin was watching the game live on his phone, paying little attention to Alice or the screens, though he did keep an annoying running commentary, probably for Frank's benefit.

A half hour into the game, Alice still had not seen hide nor hair of the Trickster. She was ready to write it off as another bogus journey, when she saw a flash of movement in a hallway that had been abandoned since the game began. Her hopes jumped for a minute, but it was not Loki.

It took her a moment to recognize Ruby. She had aged in the ten years since Alice had last seen her. Her hair was longer, and she had lost a lot of weight, but Alice would have recognized her sister's body anywhere.

Her heart stopped for a moment. It had been so long since she had thought of either Allison or Ruby. For the longest time, it had been an obsession, consuming her entire being in every waking hour, infecting the majority of her dreams. The first few hundred years in hell, she had focused single-mindedly on her rage at Ruby, trying to use it as a tool to keep herself lucid.

Eventually, however, hell had forced her to give up her vendetta. When she managed to claw her way back to the world of the living, Ruby had been the last thing on her mind. She had been too busy eluding the reaper that was still hunting her, too busy desperately enjoying life, all too aware that it was fleeting and precious. Knowing from experience that what awaited her in the afterlife was unspeakably bleak.

Now, she felt something rising in her that was reminiscent of her old hatred. By comparison, it made her old grief for Allison seem like a pale shadow. What she felt now was more intense. It was otherworldly in its potency. It was deeper than rage, bigger than hate. It filled her until she overflowed, seething under her skin.

The temperature in the room dropped until Marvin could see his breath.

"What the hell," he muttered, crossing his arms and shivering.

Alice ignored him, her gaze fixed on the screen as she watched Ruby. The demon, masquerading as a human in Allison's skin, made her way into the stadium…

...And took Alice's seat next to Sam.

Her eyes narrowed, and she stood so abruptly that her chair toppled over, falling to the ground behind her with a crash.

"Frank?!"

Alice stormed from the room, unable to think. She made a beeline through the halls into the stadium, where she saw Sam rushing Ruby toward a door opposite Alice. He glanced back surreptitiously, but didn't seem to notice her. Alice stormed after him on ghostly auto-pilot, all rational thought gone from her mind as she chased her killer. She left a trail of angry game-goers in her wake, stepping on toes, kicking shins and knocking over drinks as she carved a path to the door. She flung it open in time to see Sam disappear around a corner up ahead.

Alice chased them out of the stadium, and lost them in the packed parking lot. Frantic and enraged, she ran between rows of cars, growing more furious with each turn that did not reveal Ruby. She felt like her blood was on fire, but the ground frosted behind her, and when she lost her head completely and punched a minivan, the bent metal cracked and blackened from the intensity of the cold.

"Alice!"

She whipped around at the sound of her name to see Sam, standing five feet from her with his hands out in a placating gesture.

"Alice… stop. This is what Loki wants. This whole thing was a setup."

His expression was as careful as his stance, but Alice could see that his calm, soothing demeanor was forced. She could smell the fear rolling off him in sickeningly sweet waves.

Fear of her.

"He's trying to distract us. He's trying to-"

"Why was she talking to you?" Alice hissed, coming back to her senses. They didn't do much for her temper. "Why did she go straight to you?"

"Loki sent her. Think, Alice! He sent her because he knew you would go all vengeful spirit! He's trying to throw us off his trail for good!"

What Sam was saying made sense. Alice's head was swimming with rage and memories that fueled that rage. All she could think about was dying and hell, and the bitch that had sent her there, and what she would do if she got her hands-

"Let's go," she said abruptly. "Now."

Sam nodded. He was still speaking, but Alice was too busy to listen to him. She was grappling with an impossibly strong urge. A compulsion that flushed reason down the toilet and begged her to act on every savage, violent instinct she had.

Alice Smith had quite a few more of those instincts than most people.

They got in the car, and Sam drove for a long time. The farther away from the stadium they got, the worse Alice felt, but only up to a point. Eventually, the pounding in her head faded, and she started focusing back in on her surroundings. She realized that Sam was blasting the heat, and still shivering. For the first time in a while, there was music playing. Aerosmith. Her music.

"I thought it might help you… you know," Sam said, seeing her eyes flit to the radio.

She held her silence. Now that she was thinking clearly, her suspicions were the first thing to surface.

"Did you kill her?"

Alice already knew that he hadn't. If he had, he would have told her so back at the stadium when he was trying to calm her down. Shown her the body and settled her down that way instead of rushing her away from the scene.

Alice just wanted to see if he would lie to her.

"No," Sam admitted after a moment. He was smart enough to play her game.

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't have anything to kill her with. We went in there equipped to catch a trickster, not kill a demon."

"Why did she come up to you?"

"Loki told her what she was doing there. She wanted to rub it in my face."

That sure sounded like Ruby.

"You walked her out of the stadium. Why?"

"She told me she wanted to talk. And I was hoping you wouldn't see her. You know, since she'd just told me her reason for being there was to get you to go vengeful. Was also hoping I'd get a chance to kill her."

Alice narrowed her eyes. His answers all made sense, all sounded above board, but something about his demeanor was off. Something was wrong. There was something that he wasn't telling her.

"She wanted to talk. About what?"

Sam shrugged.

"I don't know. She ran off when she saw you coming."

That was a lie. If there was anything Alice knew in this world, it was Ruby. She knew that the demon would delight in the opportunity to face off against her again. She would see it as a chance to repeat history and get the satisfaction of killing Alice all over again.

Sam was protecting Ruby.

Why?

Alice held her silence. This turn of events was disturbing. Sam was right, they did need to focus. They needed to keep their eyes on the prize. Their mission was to make the trickster undo his work, save Dean's life, and keep him from going to hell.

How, Alice asked herself, could she keep working with Sam toward that goal knowing that he was keeping secrets from her?

Not just any secrets. Ones about her mortal enemy.

* * *

Sam kept his eyes glued to the road. Alice seemed satisfied with the partial lies he had chosen to feed her. He could not tell her the whole truth. That would mean admitting to having met with Ruby a few times since their return two years earlier. Admitting that Ruby had not, in fact, run off before he heard her out.

Now, as he considered Ruby's words, he had a choice to make.

" _Sam Winchester."_

_He would have recognized Ruby's voice anywhere, but it was the last voice in the world he had expected to hear. She slipped into the seat beside him, and Sam instinctively slid his hand into his jacket, gripping the pine stake concealed there. It could be Loki in disguise._

_"Enjoying the game?" she said, casual and pleasant._

_"What are you doing here?" he asked through gritted teeth._

_Should he stake her on the spot? It was the only way to know if she was really herself, or Loki. If it was really Ruby, she would be just fine._

_Actually, not, Sam corrected himself, cursing internally as he remembered the complicated circumstances surrounding Ruby's host. The sorcerous bonding symbol that prevented Ruby from being exorcised with a routine ceremony also meant that she would die from a fatal wound._

_Ruby leveled him with a look of disbelief._

_"You disappear for seven months, and when I finally track your sorry ass down, all you have to say to me is- hey!"_

_Abruptly, Sam grabbed her arm and hauled her out of her seat._

_"You can't be here," he realized, dragging her toward the nearest exit. "We can't be seen together. Come on!"_

_"Beezelbub, yeesh, ok," Ruby groaned, rolling her eyes as Sam scanned the crowd behind them. He didn't see Alice. Hopefully she hadn't noticed that her murderer was here._

_"Didn't know you were so embarrassed by me," Ruby said, indignation coloring her tone as Sam pushed her down the hallway and out into the parking lot. Behind him, he could see the lights flickering. Maybe it was a problem with the electricity, and not a vengeful Alice coming to kill them both._

_"What do you want Ruby?" Sam demanded._

_"Rude. Fine, I can see you're really unhappy about me interrupting your game," Ruby snarked. "Didn't peg you for a ball fan. I'll make it short and sweet. I know that Dean is dead. I know what happened to him. I assumed that you were trying to track down the trickster that killed him to get revenge, but what do I know? Apparently you're honoring his passing by watching baseball instead of trying to get him out of hell."_

_"I'm doing everything I can to get Dean back," Sam snapped._

_Ruby laughed, and said something nasty, but Sam wasn't listening to her. It was a sunny day, but the temperature around them had just dropped ten degrees. He hurried Ruby across the parking lot, away from a symphony of car alarms and crashes._

_"Hey, are you even listening to me?" Ruby demanded, wrenching her arm from Sam's grasp._

_"Ruby, this is a really bad time," Sam said, looking her in the eyes for the first time. "Like, literally the worst time."_

_Ruby read his expression, and saw that he was dead serious. She sighed._

_"Ok. Look, I'm not here to make your life harder or crack jokes about your new… hobbies."_

_She gestured to the stadium._

_"If you really want to get Dean out of hell, I can help."_

_She reached for his hand, and tucked a small piece of paper between his fingers._

_"I have a plan to get Dean out of hell," Sam said automatically._

_"And how's that working out for you?" Ruby snapped. "If my info's right, you've been banging your head against your great plan for six months, and meanwhile, Dean is where? Oh, that's right. Burning."_

_Her words struck a nerve, and Sam found himself unable to respond. Ruby rolled her eyes and started walking away._

_"Call me when you're ready to spring you brother," Ruby called over her shoulder._

_She disappeared into the maze of cars. Sam stood frozen for a moment, before he heard an enraged shout that was unmistakably Alice somewhere behind him. He shoved Ruby's number into his pocket, and went to find Alice, praying that she could be placated._

Now, Sam couldn't get his mind off what Ruby had said. She was right. What he and Alice were doing was taking too long, and there was no guarantee that it would work.

He kept driving until the day burned out, and Alice didn't stop him. They both wanted to put some space between them and the arena which had turned out to be so much worse than a dead end. By the time they stopped at a motel for the night, Sam decided he would slip away the first chance he got. In his head, he outlined the note he planned to leave for Alice. He would keep it vague. Tell her to keep hunting the trickster while he looked into something else. It made more sense the more he thought about it. Divide and conquer. More ground covered more quickly. He would call Ruby and meet with her, somewhere far away from Alice. If he didn't like what Ruby proposed, he could kill her, call Alice and go back to working with her on their original plan.

While Alice drifted fitfully to sleep in the bed closest the door, Sam tried to decide whether it would be best to leave her the Impala, or take it with him. He was still debating with himself when Bobby Singer called him. Sam answered the phone quickly, hoping that the single ring wouldn't disturb Alice and put off his escape.

It didn't, but after Sam heard what Bobby had to say, he abandoned his hasty plan.

"Alice," he said, shaking her awake urgently.

She bolted upright in bed, immediately alert and on guard. She quickly surveyed her surroundings, determined there was no threat, and yawned.

"Yeah."

"Bobby just called me. He has a lead. A big one."

"Really?" Alice asked, tone flat.

"Yeah. He found a ritual that can force the Trickster to come to us," Sam said excitedly.

Now Alice turned wary.

"One that I don't know about?" she asked suspiciously.

"It's obscure. Really, really obscure. He had to dig deep to find it."

"Ok, so what's the ritual?"

"He didn't give me details. All I know is we need to meet him back at the mystery spot by wednesday. Apparently that's the last time we'll be able to perform the ritual for fifty years."

"Bobby's been trying to get you to stop hunting the trickster for months," Alice pointed out. "Why is he suddenly so helpful?"

"Bobby's just been trying to look out for me. He said he realized that if he couldn't make me stop, the next best thing was to help me."

"Did he really. Doesn't sound like the guy I keep hearing from in your voicemails."

"So?"

"So maybe it's not him," Alice suggested. "The Trickster is trying to get us to stop chasing him. Pretty damn aggressively, if earlier was any indication. This could be a trap."

"So we go with that in mind. Come on Alice. This is the best lead we have. The best we've ever had, really."

Grimly, Alice nodded.

"You're right. And with that time limit we need to leave right away."

She got up, collected her clothes from the night stand and went to change. Alice had never struck Sam as the type to wear pajamas. She hadn't when he and Dean had been working with her in 1992, but she must have picked up the taste for them at some point in the years that followed. Tonight, she was clad in a black fleece set printed with various cat faces. They were cute, and made Alice look innocent. A deception that could prove deathly dangerous to anyone who didn't already know better.

While she changed, Sam gathered the few belongings they had brought into the room with them. Alice emerged from the bathroom, grabbed a knife from under her pillow, and followed him out the door.

"So, how do you feel?" Sam asked as they got into the car. It was Alice's turn to drive.

"Hard to say. Trying not to get my hopes up too much," Alice replied.

"No, I didn't mean about Bobby's plan. I meant about... earlier."

"You mean about Ruby."

"Yeah."

"Well..."

Alice thought for a long time while she fiddled with the GPS on her phone.

"I mean, how are you keeping it together?" Sam asked, too curious to stop himself. His life was hunting ghosts. He had always taken it for granted that vengeful spirits had no control over their actions, but now Alice was forcing him to question that assumption.

"I'm trying hard not to think about it honestly," she replied steadily. "But... I think..."

It took her so long to find the right words that Sam thought the conversation was over, when she finally spoke.

"I need to stay focused on getting Dean back. After that, I'll take care of Ruby. Now that I know she's still out there... I don't think I'll be able to stop myself from going after her. Not forever, at least. But I've been waiting so long to get back at her for everything she did... A little longer won't hurt."

* * *

They arrived at the Mystery Spot together, but split up just outside. Their plan was simple. Sam would tell Bobby that he and Alice had been forced to stop working together, with the implication that Alice had left suddenly to take care of some unfinished business. If this turned out to be a trap, the trickster would likely assume his earlier plan had worked, and Alice was off chasing Ruby. This would give them an advantage. He would assume that Sam had come alone. If he attacked Sam, Alice would have his back.

If it turned out that there was no trap, Alice would stroll in, no harm no foul. Simple.

Alice warded herself so that the trickster would be unable to sense her presence, and sent Sam in ahead of her. She waited five minutes, and then followed him into the Mystery Spot. She walked through the bizarre collection of rooms, treading lightly and even taking care to breath quietly. She stopped when she heard voices, and followed them until she reached a doorway. She could hear Sam and Bobby clearly, but she couldn't see them. She stood at the ready, out of sight behind the door frame, gripping a pine stake.

"What else do we need?" she heard Sam ask.

"Blood. And a lot of it. Ritual says near a gallon."

Alice grimaced when she heard Bobby Singer's low, gruff voice. They parted on less than amiable terms after their first meeting.

"And it's got to be fresh."

"Meaning we'll need to bleed someone dry," Sam realized. His tone was flat, carefully guarded in an effort to hide his suspicions.

"And it has to be tonight," Bobby replied. "Or else not for another fifty years."

That was all Alice needed to hear. Bobby's issues with her had been strictly moral. There was no way the man she had met six months ago would be willing to sacrifice a human life for a summoning ritual.

Sam, however, did not give the signal.

"So let's go get some," he said.

Alice hesitated outside the door, torn. Sam knew Bobby better than she did. Was he still hoping this was real and they would get to go through with the ritual? Or was he still unsure, testing Bobby?

"You break my heart, kid," Bobby sighed. "I'm not going to let you murder an innocent man."

That sounded more like the Bobby Singer Alice had tussled with six months ago.

"Then why'd you bring me here?" Sam demanded.

"Why? Because it was the only way you'd see me!" Bobby exclaimed. "Because I'm trying to knock some sense into you. Because I thought you'd back down from killing a man!"

Sam snapped his fingers, signalling to Alice that she could show herself. She stepped into view, drawing Bobby's full attention immediately.

"Guess you thought wrong," she said.

"Smith," Bobby said, nearly choking with surprise. Alice's eyes narrowed when she heard her last name. Aside from being offended to hear it again, she searched her memory, racking her brain in an attempt to remember if she had ever revealed it to Bobby.

"Sam, this isn't you," Bobby plead. "You let this... monster, get into your head. I know you. You're not capable of murder, Sam!"

"You're wrong. I'll do whatever it takes to get Dean back. That's not Alice. That's all me."

Alice circled around to stand behind Bobby. She rarely gave out her last name. She knew that she hadn't told Bobby.

"I'm not gonna let you kill an innocent man," Bobby told Sam.

"It's none of your business what I do!" Sam yelled. Alice's hands caught his attention for a moment. In the time they'd spent together, she had taken the time to teach him ASL, stating that she found it ridiculous that he didn't already know. She considered it an essential skill for any hunter.

 _It's not Bobby,_ her hands now told him. He nodded grimly, gritting his teeth.

"You want your brother back so bad? Fine," the trickster said with Bobby's voice.

"What are you waiting for?" Sam told Alice.

Before the trickster could voice his confusion, Alice thrust her pine stake through his chest. Bobby fell to his knees, and for a minute, Sam's heart dropped into his stomach. How did she know? What if she was wrong?

"Bobby? Bobby!"

The body on the floor flickered, and disappeared, taking Sam's panic with it. They heard a familiar chuckle from the corner of the room.

"Cool it, Sam. She got it right. I was just screwing with you. Couldn't resist. Impressive, by the way."

Loki winked at Alice.

"Let me tell you though," he said to Sam, "whoever said you and Dean made a scary pair never saw you teamed up with this little psycho. Holy Full Metal Jacket."

Alice made a move for her pine stake, which lay on the ground where the illusion of Bobby's corpse had fallen.

"Uh-uh-uh," Loki tutted. He snapped his fingers, and she disappeared with a puff of smoke.

"What did you-"

"Relax. All I did was send her somewhere far enough away that you and me'll be able to talk without her interrupting."

"There's nothing to talk about. Bring Dean back," Sam said, pulling his own stake out from within his jacket.

"Aw jeez. Didn't my girl send you flowers?" Loki said, rolling his eyes. "Dean's dead. He ain't coming back. His soul's downstairs doing the hellfire rumba as we speak."

"Just take me back to that wednesday," Sam begged. "I know you can. Please. I-I swear I won't come after you."

"You swear?"

"Yes!"

The trickster sighed, considering.

"I don't know. Even if I could-"

"You can!" Sam snapped.

"Ok, but that doesn't mean I should. Sam, there's a lesson here that I've been trying to drill into that freakish cro-magnon skull of yours."

"Lesson? What lesson?" Sam demanded.

"This obsession to save Dean? The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other," Loki explained. "Nothing good comes from it. Just blood and pain. Dean's your weakness. And the bad guys know it. It's gonna be the death of you, Sam. Sometimes, you just have to let people go."

He said it with absolute sincerity that caught Sam completely off guard, and made him wonder why the trickster cared so much. All they had ever tried to do was kill each other.

"He's my brother," was all Sam could manage to say.

"And like it or not, this is what life's gonna be like without him."

"Please. Just..." Sam had no argument. Nothing to counter Loki's point. "Please."

The trickster growled in frustration, and threw his hands up in surrender.

"I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall," he groaned. "Ok, look. This stopped being fun months ago, and I've kept this up for about as long as I can without Timeline management looking into it."

"Huh?"

"Don't worry about it," Loki sighed.

He snapped his fingers, and Sam found himself waking up in a hotel room that was terribly familiar. A glance at the clock told him it was Wednesday.

It was over. He'd done it.


	19. Firebird Blues

Adjusting to the leap back in time was disorienting, to say the least. It definitely made Sam's list of top ten weird experiences. Dean remembered none of his deaths, none of the countless Tuesday's that were burned like brands into Sam's memory. He had no idea what his younger brother had been through, so it was unsurprising that he wasn't as eager as Sam to hurry out of town. Sam understood why Dean found it strange that he stuck so close to his side the entire time they packed, ushered him to the car like he expected an assassination.

In truth, Sam didn't know what to expect. The last time he assumed it was over, assumed that Dean was finally safe, it had come back to bite him hard.

"Look, Sam, I'm fine to drive," Dean insisted, pushing past him to unlock the Impala.

"I mean- yeah, fine. Just quickly," Sam said nervously, scanning the parking lot.

"Shouldn't slowly and carefully be the ticket, mother goose?" Dean japed.

Sam spotted a familiar bum meandering down the sidewalk, and his blood ran cold. The man went on his way peacefully though, without sparing the motel a second glance. Sam watched him walk away, frozen in place by the memory of what that exact man had done. Or hadn't done, he supposed.

"Uh... Sammy?" Dean asked after a long moment. "I thought we were in a hurry."

"Uh... yeah. Right, yeah."

Sam shook himself, and climbed into the car.

"Alice," he remembered suddenly. He pulled his phone from his pocket and punched in her number.

"Oh yeah, Alice. Sam, how much does she know? About my deal? You didn't tell her, did you?" Dean asked.

"I'm about to find out," Sam replied.

"Yeah?" came Alice's voice. She sounded groggy, like he'd woken her.

"It's me."

"Sam. What happened? One minute I was driving into town to meet you guys, and the next thing I know... well, this is the next thing."

Sam's heart sank. She didn't remember.

"We, uh... we made a deal with the trickster. He let us go, we let him go."

"You let him go?" Alice demanded, though Sam thought he heard amusement mixed with her outrage.

"It was the only way."

"Look, that's your business. This is, what, the second time Loki's messed with your timeline? If I were you, I would've put him down once and for all, but like I said, your business. How's Dean?"

"Good. Alive."

"Put him on, would you? I've got a few choice words for him about his cynicism. I mean, for crying out loud, I've met normal people- the kind who don't hunt ghosts and monsters, who were more open to the paranormal than him," Alice laughed.

Sam glanced at Dean, impatiently doing the speed limit on their beeline for the town border. Sam decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Uh, I'd actually prefer it if we just met up in person," Sam said. "We're not quite out of the woods yet."

"If you wanted to be out of the woods, you should have staked the trickster when you had the chance," Alice snorted. "Whatever you say though. There's a truck stop just up the highway. Or, if you're feeling nostalgic, Bisbee's about an hour away. There's a great Italian place that I didn't know about last time we were there. My treat?"

"Alice, last time we were in Bisbee we almost died," Sam frowned.

"Ok. Truck stop it is. See you there."

As soon as Sam hung up, Dean jumped in.

"So how much did you tell her?" he asked. The words had an edge of anxiety to them that immediately let Sam know what he was talking about.

"Nothing, yet," he replied. In truth, he'd told Alice everything about Dean's deal, but it seemed that the Trickster had not allowed Alice to keep those memories, which put Sam back at square one. "We were a little busy."

"Ok. Good. Keep it that way."

"Why?" Sam demanded. "Dean, she can help you."

"Don't make me say it, Sam," Dean growled, serious as death. "No one can help me. You know why."

"I don't think that's true. And if there's anyone on this planet who'll know what to do, it's Alice," Sam argued. "I mean, come on, Dean, she escaped hell! Her family specializes in hunting demons! We at least need to ask."

"I don't want to get her mixed up in our mess!" Dean snapped.

"Why?! Because she would never mix us up in her messes?!" Sam stormed.

"The answer is no, Sam," Dean said through gritted teeth. "My life isn't the only one on the line here. We mess with this deal, and they come for YOU! That's not a risk I'm willing to take!"

"That's a risk we already decided to take!"

Sam took a deep breath. He'd been banging his head against this wall for months before they got stuck at the mystery spot. He knew from experience that Dean wasn't going to budge. He seemed determined to stand his ground and bite this bullet.

"Ok," Sam said, trying another route. "So we don't tell her about your deal. She can still help us. We still need to find the Colt and get it back."

"We don't need her help for that. Talbot's slippery, but she isn't so good that it'll take three hunters to track her down."

Sam frowned, sensing that that Dean wasn't telling him everything.

"You didn't have a problem getting Bobby, Ellen and every hunter going through the roadhouse to keep a lookout for her. You just don't want to work with Alice. Why?"

Dean tightened his grip on the steering wheel noticeably and set his jaw.

"Because it's not fair. Look, me and Alice... there's a lot of distance between us right now. I'd like to keep it that way. So that if- no, when, my time is up, she.."

Sam shook his head. He understood that Dean wanted to spare Alice from what he thought was an inevitable good-bye. Sam, however, had spent enough time with Alice to know that Dean wasn't doing her any favors by keeping her in the dark. He briefly considered trying to tell Dean, but didn't feel like explaining that he had gotten to know Alice pretty well over a six month period that technically never happened.

"She just spent months camped out on the highway working to pull your ass out of the frying pan," he said instead, hoping it would be enough. "There's a lot less distance between you than you think."

Dean's resolute expression wavered.

"Besides," Sam pressed, "you don't have that long left. Shouldn't you be enjoying your time as much as possible?"

They rode in silence the rest of the way to the truck stop.

Alice greeted them there with open arms that Sam knew from experience were sarcastic. Still, he found it strange how tempted he was to step into her embrace.

"Looking pretty good, considering," she told them both. "Dean."

"Alice."

Dean faltered, unsure of what to say. It was a rare state for him. Thankfully, Alice seemed to have prepared better than he.

"Now look. I know it was a long time ago- longer for me than you, actually. But do you remember what I told you the first time we met?"

"Uh… Don't move or I'll shoot?" Dean guessed, only half-joking.

Alice rolled her eyes.

"Good memory, but after that. When you were gobsmacking about how impossible time travel was."

"Right, right. Open my mind, all that jazz," Dean said, waving her off. "Can we talk about it over pancakes? Sammy here was so eager to leave town he made me skip breakfast."

"You wouldn't have a problem skipping breakfast if you knew how many different ways your breakfast killed you over the past few weeks!" Alice exclaimed, following his lead into the restaurant.

"No. Breakfast? Really? How many times?"

"Too many," Sam groaned.

Dean look profoundly betrayed.

"That's just wrong. So, so wrong."

They sat down together in the Denny's attached to the truck stop. Sam listened Alice and Dean banter for a while, trying to decide if he should tell them about the six months the Trickster had caused and then erased. He didn't realize he was gazing vacantly out the window until he heard Alice say his name, her voice dropping a little lower than it had been for the rest of the conversation.

"Hey, is Sam always this quiet these days?" she murmured.

Sam glanced at her with a frown, while Dean's eyes darted between him and Alice.

"Uh… Well, he's real sensitive, you know?" Dean snarked. "Gets PTSD easy. You gotta give him some space."

Sam snorted.

"I'm the sensitive one? Dean, you have the constitution of a flea."

"Fleas are impossible to kill."

"Ok, fine, a knat then. Jerk"

"Bi-"

Dean cut off as the waitress stepped up with their orders. She was an older woman, and shot Dean a look that would curdle fresh milk. He cleared his throat guiltily, and quickly rephrased as she set their food down.

"Bin… Binge drinker," he improvised sheepishly, shifting uncomfortably under "Evelyn's" glare.

Sam just laughed at the terrible, hasty excuse for an insult.

The waitress walked off, and Dean dug into his food with gusto.

"You know, that's divine inspiration actually," he told Alice through a mouthful of eggs. "We need to scarf this down, find a bar and get some drinks. It'll loosen Sam up, plus I owe you one anyway, right?"

"Dean, come on man, it's eight in the morning," Sam protested.

"So?" Alice questioned. "I'm assuming you don't want to go looking for a bar in Douglas."

"Absolutely not," Sam agreed.

"The next nearest town is Bisbee, and you've already made it clear you aren't itching for a reunion tour there. So, we'll need to shoot farther up. Tombstone. Tucson. Hell, we could make it to Phoenix by five. Probably."

"Come on, Sam," Dean egged. "Cope with your trauma like a healthy human being. By drowning it in bourbon."

"I'll drink to that," Alice grinned, toasting him with her orange juice.

"You two drown, I'll be the designated driver," Sam scoffed.

"You know, I actually haven't gotten drunk since I've been back on this delightful mortal coil," Alice mused aloud. "Not even buzzed, really."

"What, you've been sober for two months?" Dean asked incredulously.

"Not at all. Guess I just haven't been going at it like I used to," Alice shrugged.

"It's the shifter body," Sam explained. "You're gonna need something with a little extra kick to get you drunk now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'd recommend, uh… Sierra Silver."

"Sierra Silver. I used to know someone who drank that on occasion," Alice said thoughtfully. "That shit was _awfully_ strong."

"150 proof," Sam informed her. "They call it 'the rock that bites'."

"Ok Sammy!" Dean exclaimed in surprised. "Didn't know you knew your liquor like that."

"Well, I used to know someone who drank it too," he said simply.

* * *

Alice unloaded her gear into the Impala, and rode with the Winchesters on their quest to find a bar in the middle of the Sonora desert.

"I've been riding it for three weeks," she said of the car she was leaving behind. "Way past time to ditch it, even if I did get it on the other side of the country."

"Have you ever considered buying a car?" Sam suggested. "It'll make your life a lot easier if you don't have to ditch it and steal a new one every other week."

"That.. is a really good idea," Alice mused. "Buy something small for cash, minimize the paper trail, put a fake name on it... yeah, I like it."

They made their way into Tucson by eleven, and after a short debate, decided to push onward to Phoenix. Alice argued that life was too short to put a time limit on your alcoholism, while Sam pointed out that life might not be so short if more people respected the five 'o clock rule. Dean tipped the scale by grudgingly agreeing with Sam.

Even so, they rolled into Phoenix barely a full hour later, leaving them with time to kill. Alice and Dean almost dragged Sam into the first bar they saw, but he managed to tempt them into browsing used car lots instead.

"Anyway, we should find a place that serves that tequila Sam mentioned," Dean admitted in favor of delaying. "Now that you need to be all picky about your alcohol, we can't just waltz into any old joint."

"Hmm."

Alice was distracted, glancing down a line of sport cars with a critical expression.

"Mustang? Classy," Dean commented, following Alice's gaze.

"Meh. Not a lot of room," she said dismissively. "We should have hit the bar first. I've got three hundred on me right now. I could flip that on darts and picking pockets and come back here with the possibility of actually driving away in something."

"No one's going to be there at twelve in the morning," Sam pointed out. "Just look around. Pick something out maybe. We'll come back for it later."

Alice grumbled something under her breath. She had made it clear to them that she was eager to try out the Sierra Silver, and possibly experience inebriation for the first time since her makeshift resurrection.

Nothing in the car lot caught Alice's interest, so they circled around to a few more. Fortuitously, they made their way to one with a discount motel across the street from it, and Sam checked them in while Alice and Dean strolled among the cars.

"I see what you're saying about the practicality of it," Dean was saying, "but you can hunt in style. I mean, just look at my baby."

He turned to gaze fondly at the Impala, parked outside the motel office. Alice raised her eyebrows at his expression of absolute adoration, but didn't mock him.

"Your baby is beautiful," she replied, only somewhat sarcastically. "But she's not exactly low-key either."

"Yeah, well. She's more than a pretty face," Dean explained. "My Dad had her since he first met my Mother. Me and Sam were practically raised in that car."

"Lots of history," Alice realized.

Dean nodded. Before he could say anything else, though, Alice broke off abruptly, swerving between rows of cars with sudden, laser-like intent. He followed her to a small black truck that they had passed a few minutes earlier. She gazed at it contemplatively.

"Maybe a little history is just what I need," she mused aloud.

Dean waited patiently for her to go on.

"My grandmother used to drive a ford ranger. Like this one. Hers was red though. 1990."

"Lots of memories?"

"No. Not really, actually," Alice sighed. "I was too young."

"Huh. Still, could be nice. Might, uh... I don't know, help you feel closer to her, or something."

"Maybe. Kind of doubt it though. She raised me. Taught me everything I know."

Her fingers brushed over her torxing marks, which were just beginning a fresh cycle. There was a distant look in her eyes, like she was revisiting something long forgotten.

"Hard to get closer to someone than that."

She sharpened, seeming to snap back to the present.

"Good car though. Again, not terribly roomy, but damn does the bed come in handy."

She checked her watch, and met Dean's eyes with a grin.

"2:40," she said excitedly.

"Two more hours," he teased. She punched his arm, and they headed back to grab Sam. It was time to go, whether he was ready or not.

Sam figured that he'd done his due diligence, and so threw his hands in the air and allowed them to race off in search of somewhere to unwind for the rest of the evening. Truth be told, he felt he could use a beer at that point.

They settled into the Firebird tavern, a spacious establishment that looked like it would be bustling in a few hours. It sported pool tables, air hockey, and most importantly(At least according to Alice), darts.

"You know, I actually beat the crap out of your Dad at darts once," Alice gloated in an attempt to goad Dean into a match against her.

"Bull. Dad could nail a fly with a dart from twenty feet away," Dean scoffed.

"Not in 1991 he couldn't," Alice insisted. "It's how he got to owe me two hundred bucks."

"Wow. You know, I completely forgot about that money," Sam chuckled.

"Yeah, money that I never got," Alice said sourly.

"Because of a deal _you_ made with us," Dean pointed out.

"A deal that you didn't make good on," Alice shot back. She held her hands up in surrender, nonetheless. "All water under the bridge. Sure could use that two hundred for car money right about now though."

"Hey, if you want, I'll give you a chance to win it off me," Dean offered.

Alice started to grin, thinking he was about to acquiesce to a game of darts.

"In a pool match," he finished.

"Aw," Alice groaned. "Not fair. You know I'm no good at pool."

"Not really. I've never seen you play."

"Yeah, and you never will. It's a lot like watching a penguin pilot a plane. Sad and terrifying at the same time."

Sam and Dean spoke at the same time, make it hard for her to make out what they were saying.

"What. No penguin has ever tried to-"

"Hey, you know what I really want to know-"

"Stop! Dean, it's a metaphor. Of course penguins don't fly planes. Sam-"

"Simile," Sam corrected her. "Simile, not metaphor."

"Ok professor," she mocked. "You were saying?"

"Ok. In 1991, you were what, 12?"

"13."

"Same difference. How did you beat our dad at darts in a bar at 13?" Sam demanded suspiciously.

"It was at the roadhouse bar and grill," she said by way of explanation. "Keyword ' _grill'._ I was just there for the steaks. Imagine my surprise when I overheard a few conversations about hunting.

Now, is someone going to play darts with me, or not?" she asked loudly, scanning the room for takers. It's few occupants glanced up briefly to see who was making the noise, but quickly dropped their gazes again.

"Alice, it's still early," Sam said under his breath. "Anyone in here right now is down on their luck. No one's in the mood for darts."

"Pff. Come on, pleaaase," Alice whined. "I haven't played darts in... oh god. A thousand years. Give or take a few dozen."

"What?!" Dean demanded.

"You know. Because I've been dead."

"Alice, you were dead for like five years!"

"Eight," Sam corrected him.

"Ok, she's still about 992 years off the mark!" Dean frowned.

"Yeah, from your perspective," Alice shuddered, waving the bartender over. "Time passes differently in hell. It's a rough distortion of ten years to a month."

"Meaning..."

"You spend a month dead by earth's clock, it's ten years in hell. One year becomes one hundred and twenty. Eight years... well, you get the idea."

She knocked back what Sam estimated to be her third shot, seemingly oblivious to the expression of horror on Dean's face.

"Come on, play me Sam," she chattered on. "I'll take a handicap."

"I'll, uh... I'll play you," Dean cut in. Sam could tell that he was trying not to let Alice see how much of a toll her words had taken on him. "But if I beat you, you have to play pool with me."

"Whoo! After I get back from the bathroom," Alice whooped excitedly as she walked away. "I can't wait to kick your ass! Start a tradition of taking money from Winchesters!"

Sam looked Dean over in concern as he ordered more drinks.

"You ok?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," Dean replied flatly. He looked anything but. All the blood had drained from his face as soon while Alice was speaking, and now he was pale as death. "Having a ball."

He faked a smile, and raised his glass at Sam before slamming it's contents. Sam watched him knock back two more in quick succession, but couldn't bring himself to say anything.

"Just gonna... knock Alice off her high darts horse, and then kick her ass at pool too."

Sam thought about taking advantage of his despair, trying once again to convince him to tell Alice about his deal, but he didn't have the heart to go through with it.

"Should be fun to watch," he smiled, slowly sipping his beer.

It was a long night, far longer than Sam would have liked it to be. Dean hammered away at Alice on the dartboard. Alice did indeed prove to be a pro at the game, even with severe handicaps. After polishing off a whole bottle of tequila though, she started slipping up, and Dean finally managed to beat her. Grudgingly, Alice played a game of pool with him, and she was every bit as bad as she had warned. Sam couldn't help laughing as he watched her struggle to even connect the pool stick with the cue ball, though how much of her failure was due to drunkeness, he couldn't say. The game was brutally short, and Dean won back all of his money in one go by assuring Alice that if she gave it back, he wouldn't make her play pool with him ever again.

After Alice and Dean's showdown, hustling others became impossible. They had both showcased every ounce of skill in their bodies, and no one would play them for money. So, they played for fun, and Sam took up the mantle of hustler to pass the time, flipping a twenty into two hundred within a few hours. After that, he retired to a quiet corner with his third beer, and watched with great amusement as Alice and Dean mingled with the locals.

He nodded off at some point, only to be woken by Dean at 2 am.

"Sam. Sam. Come on, they kicked Alice out," he said, speech slurring. "We gotta go _GRACE SOMEONE ELSE'S ESTABLISHMENT_."

He belted the last half of that sentence in the direction of the bartender, who tossed a wet rag at him in response. It missed, and hit the wall next to Sam's head with a splat.

"Kicked out?" Sam asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. "Why?"

"Ah, you know. Drinking contest. Some jerk accused her of cheating," Dean chuckled. "Between us, I'm pretty sure it's the shifter thing though. I mean _god damn._ "

"Dean, how does someone even cheat at a drinking contest?" Sam demanded sleepily as they stumbled out of the Firebird.

"I know, right?! I mean, the guy said she paid the bartender to serve her water, but come on!"

"Right. Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's Alice now?"

"Oh, she's in the car."

"Uh huh. And where's the car?"

Dean frowned, surveying the lot to find that the Impala was nowhere in sight.

"Uh... I don't know Sam. Where... Where'd you park it?"

"Right there."

Sam pointed to an empty space, exiting which were a fresh set of skid marks.

"No..."

"Dean."

"Nooo," Dean moaned. "She wouldn't."

"How much did she have to drink, Dean?" Sam sighed.

"Way to much to be taking off in my baby!" Dean yelled. "God damn it!"

He stomped and cursed, while Sam patted his back soothingly.

"Wait here. I'll go ask for a phone book, get us a cab back to the motel. She probably went back there."

"Saaaaam!" Dean wailed. "Sam, she can't- Oh god! Even if she wasn't so completely hammered- Sam, you don't understand! Alice is SO _SO_ smashed!"

Sam left Dean to his histrionics, and managed to get a cab heading their way. Dean was somewhat calmed by the time it arrived, if a bit melodramatically gloomy.

"I'll never forgive her," he vowed. "If there's so much as a single scratch..."

Sam tuned him out the entire ride back. As soon as they neared the motel, Dean plastered his face to the window like a small child, desperate for a glimpse of the Impala. The sigh of relief he breathed when they saw it, parked in the middle of the entrance to the lot and blocking it completely, was enormous.

"Ugh, man," Sam cringed away at the smell.

"She's safe. Thank god."

Dean rushed out of the cab to inspect the Impala, while Sam paid and tipped the driver out of his pool money.

"Where's Alice?" Sam asked when he caught up with Dean.

"Hell if I know," he growled. "She left the car running. And LOOK where she set it down."

He crooned sweet nothings to the Impala while Sam ushered him into the passenger seat, then got in and guided the car into a proper parking space. By the time he took the key out of the ignition, Dean was passed out on the dashboard, snoring up a storm. Sam shook his shoulder, but couldn't rouse him.

"Never mind," he sighed in defeat, exhausted. He left Dean to sleep in the car, and went into the room. Alice wasn't there, but Sam figured she could take care of herself. He showered, brushed his teeth, and passed out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

* * *

Sam was woken late the next morning by someone pounding on the door. He yawned and stretched, feeling surprisingly well rested. When he answered the door, he found Dean on the other side, wincing against the sunlight.

"Wow," Sam said in greeting. "You look-"

"Like a shit sandwich with crap on the side?" Dean groaned, shouldering past Sam into the room.

"Well, I was gonna say death warmed over, but-"

"Shhhh," Dean shushed him softly, clutching his own head. "Where's Alice?"

"She never showed back up."

"Dude, volume," Dean all but whispered.

"Right. So, uh... how much do you remember?"

"Uh... everything, sort of. I didn't get _that_ drunk, Sam," Dean said. "So, where should we look first?"

"Have you tried calling her?"

"No. Good one."

Dean called Alice. It went to voicemail the first time. He tried again, and this time, the ringing was cut off halfway through.

"She's declining calls. That's a good sign," Dean said. "Means she's at least conscious."

The third time was the charm.

"What."

"Good morning to you to, sunshine," Dean said. "Where are you?"

"I'm... hang on."

He waited while there were a few crashes on the other end, and a string of creative curses from Alice.

"Across the street from the motel."

Dean walked out the door, flinching a little, to survey the street.

"Where?"

"At the car lot."

"You're in the lot?" he asked, starting across the street on foot, pursued by Sam.

"In the main office. Oh boy. Maybe you shouldn't-"

"I'm right here, Alice. I can see the office."

"Hang on a-"

"Here I come."

Dean hung up the phone, and pushed experimentally on the office door. It swung inward freely, unlatched.

"What the holy..."

Inside the office was a scene of absolute upheaval. The desk was overturned, items strewn across the floor and mixed with broken glass and dirt from potted plants. In the center of it all, a man was tied into a chair with a gag in his mouth. Behind him, struggling to rise from a flipped over, emptied out cabinet that had been converted into a crappy makeshift bed, was Alice. She winced and held her hand up to shield her eyes from the light that streamed in the open door past Sam and Dean.

They gaped at the destruction in horror, while the man started wriggling and squealing urgently.

"G'morning," Alice groaned.

"Alice... what the hell..."

"It's not as bad as it looks!" she said hurriedly, falling out of the cabinet and managing to make it to her feet. "I just came here to buy that truck!"

"What truck?" Sam demanded.

"There was a truck," Dean said, as if in explanation.

"Ok, so who the hell is that?" Sam asked, pointing to the tied up man.

"Oh, this is Billy," Alice said, patting him on the shoulder. She got a bit of plant dirt on him, and tried to brush it off discreetly. "He's a used car salesman."

"Ok. Why is he-"

"Negotiations," Alice laughed dismissively. "They can get tough sometimes when you walk in trying to buy a car for three hundred dollars with no note, am I right Billy?"

Billy nodded in terror, his eyes pleading with the Winchester to help him.

"Dude, she's not even hungover yet," Dean told Sam incredulously.

"Oh god. Why," Sam sighed beleagueredly. "What did I ever do."

"So, who wants to take my new truck for a spin?" Alice asked brightly, holding up the keys.

Billy whimpered, and Sam groaned.

"Hey Alice," Dean asked. "If you bite me, will I turn into a shifter and get your tolerance?"

Sam shot him a dirty look, while Alice shook her head slowly.

"What?" Dean demanded.

"This can't be happening to me," Sam said, throwing his hands in the air and backing out of the office.

Dean watched him go for a moment, then turned back to Alice with a grin.

"I call shotgun."


	20. Tails and Traces

"Ok, Dean! It's fine!" Alice exclaimed in exasperation. "I get it. I _promise_ I will never drive your car again as long as-"

"Whoa, whoa whoa!" Dean stopped her, throwing his hands up. "Let's not burn that bridge all the way, ok? I mean... you might need to drive her again. You know, under emergency circumstances. Hopefully not while black-out drunk, but shit happens, right?"

"Ok," Alice sighed.

She parked her new truck outside their motel room. After forcing Billy to make a few promises to ensure that the truck really was hers and he wouldn't involve the cops after she left, she and Dean had gone on a short joy ride. Of course, Dean had taken most of the joy out of it by lecturing Alice on 'what a dick move' she pulled at the Firebird. Alice didn't remember the dick move in question, but didn't doubt that she'd done it either.

Now she was paying quite a steep price for a night of fun that she could barely remember.

"Ugh," she groaned, resting her head on the steering wheel as the seeds of a headache planted themselves in the back of her skull and blossomed within minutes.

"Joining the hangover party?" Dean asked from behind a pair of dark sunglasses.

"Seems like it. I was kinda hoping shifters didn't get hungover," Alice moaned.

"Huh. Sucks."

"Where did Sam go?"

"He's out after some food," Dean explained, leaning the passenger seat way back and settling in with his arms crossed over his chest. "Made sure to let me know that he would take his time."

Dean smirked and Alice raised her eyebrows.

"What for?"

"In his words? So we can 'have plenty of time to catch up'", Dean quoted.

Alice scoffed as her headache intensified.

"Catch up? I'm gonna be puking my guts out in a minute."

"I'm right there with you," Dean assured her. "I know a great hangover cure though."

"Really? What? My go to is water it up and sleep it off."

"Meh. Two out of five stars."

"Ok, and your miracle cure is...?"

"Sex."

"You're joking."

"No ma'am."

"Sex."

"Yep."

"That sounds about as nice right now as a merry-go- oh god."

The thought of a merry-go-round put Alice over the edge, and she quickly threw open her door to hurl onto the asphalt.

"It works though, really," Dean insisted. "I mean, you won't feel a hundred percent, but it definitely helps."

"Sex to shorten a hangover," Alice chuckled, spitting in a vain attempt to get the bad taste out of her mouth. "You know, I always figured we'd end up sleeping together eventually. But I never, not in my wildest dreams, imagined it would be to cure a hangover."

"Huh. Did you, uh... you imagine it... often?" Dean asked.

"Uh..."

They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes before Dean cleared his throat.

"Well, a hot shower is always a good start, right?" he said, getting out of the car. "And water. Like you said."

"Yeah. Lots of water," she agreed quickly, following him out of the car and into the room.

"You know," Dean pondered aloud as he closed the door behind them, "I wonder if you would still be hungover if you shifted into someone who didn't drink a gallon of tequila last night."

"Shifting is a disgusting process," Alice informed him. She gagged a little. "See? You would have made me throw up if I hadn't already."

"Right, sorry. So, you wanna shower first?"

Alice thought about it for a minute.

"Well, I mean... is it a small shower?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, I thought the aim here was sex," she shrugged. "Nice way to ease into it, right?"

"Oh, you mean you wanna- gotcha."

Dean had been half-joking when he proposed they sleep together, but he wasn't about to back down now. He followed her into the bathroom, watching as she undressed, before realizing that he was staring. He quickly stripped his own clothes off. Meanwhile, Alice ran the water.

"You like it hot?"

"Almost scalding. You?"

"Same."

She glanced back at him, and quickly looked away, cheeks flushed. Dean realized she was being shy, keeping her gaze from wandering anywhere but his face. With a start, he realized he was doing much the same, examining her hair way too closely.

"So. What about you?" she asked, meeting his eyes as steam started to fill the room. "Did you imagine it a lot?"

"Imagine what."

"You know what."

"I... I tried not to."

She stepped into the water, sighing as it washed over her. It was still lukewarm, but it immediately distracted her from how bad her stomach felt. She stepped aside as Dean joined her. The shower actually was a bit small, but its head was mounted high enough that Alice was still catching some of the water. She let her eyes roam over Dean for the first time, intensely aware of the fact that he was looking her over as well. She smiled sheepishly when their eyes met again.

"This is weird, right?" she asked. "It's not just me?"

"It does feel a little weird, yeah" Dean agreed.

"You can't put your finger on why either?"

Dean shook his head.

"I guess… there's a lot of history between us. Complicated history," he said.

"You can say that again. When did it get like that? Complicated."

"Pretty sure it's been that way since day one."

"I don't know. Seemed pretty simple to me when we met," Alice debated. "Good hunter, bad hunter."

She touched him tentatively and he looked down to see her tracing the scar on his shoulder from when she shot him all those years ago.

"It's never that simple in this line of work," Dean argued.

With those words, he confirmed her suspicions that he didn't truly consider her to be bad.

"If you say so," she replied shortly. She knew what she was. There wasn't much to be done for it at this point.

She nudged her way around him to take a turn under the water, their bodies rubbing together in the tight space in the process. Alice felt an electric tingle race through her at the contact, raising goosebumps all over her skin despite the hot water.

"Hey, not bad," she said, noting that her headache lessened ever so slightly as well. She was going to need to read up on this hangover cure to see if it was legit or if she was experiencing a placebo at the moment.

"It gets better," Dean promised, winding his arms around her loosely to feel the water rolling down her body. "Much better."

He kissed her lightly and she saw what he meant.

* * *

Sam sat in the Impala outside the motel room. He'd watched Alice and Dean walk in together. They both looked sick, and Sam was way more familiar with his brother's favored hangover cure than he would have liked to be. He figured it would be safe to join them in an hour or two.

He took his sweet time scrolling through a list of Phoenix's most highly recommended restaurants, knowing that in the end it was probably going to come down to Mcdonald's or Burger King. Still, it didn't hurt to look.

"Sam!"

Someone called his name and knocked on his window. He looked up and his entire body tensed in alarm when he saw who it was.

"Open up," Ruby demanded through the glass.

Sam's head whipped around in panic, scanning the parking lot to see if anyone was watching. Thankfully, Dean and Alice must have been occupied. The curtains in their room remained drawn.

"Ruby? What the hell are you doing here?!" Sam hissed, unlocking the Impala and waving her to the passenger side.

"What am I doing here?!" Ruby ranted while Sam tore out of the motel parking lot. "You and your blockhead brother disappeared for about two months. Two months, Sam! I've been trying to track you down this whole time!"

"Why?"

"To make sure you were ok," Ruby said, feigning hurt at the question. "So? Are you?"

"We're fine. How did you find us?"

"You left your friend Bobby a message saying you were in Douglas."

"What, are you and Bobby working together now?"

"Pff. Hardly. He called me to see if I'd heard from you. So, you peeled out of there awfully fast," she noted. "Dean have a bug up his ass about me today?"

"Worse."

"Look, I already explained to him, I'm not evil," Ruby insisted. "All that stuff with Alice was personal. He can't judge me for getting revenge on the bitch that _literally_ tortured and killed me. He needs to get over it. Hypocrite."

"Yeah, I doubt that's gonna happen," Sam said. "Look, Ruby, we can't work together anymore."

"What? Why not?"

"It's... it's complicated. It's really complicated."

"I've got time."

"It's just not safe anymore."

"What, you're afraid Dean'll kill me? It's real sweet of you to worry, Sam, but-"

"Dean's only half of it," Sam cut her off.

Ruby stopped talking and studied Sam closely.

"There's something going on you don't want to tell me about," she realized.

"Like I said, it's-"

"Sam, I swear, if you say complicated again-"

"Look," Sam interrupted. "If you're really just here to see if we're ok, the answer is yes. And… it would be best if you kept your distance for a while."

"No. There's a lot going on out here that you don't know about," Ruby warned gravely. "Lilith is amassing followers. She's going to start making big moves soon. That's going to be an unprecedented shit storm and you're going to be caught right in the middle of it. You're going to need my help."

Sam drove silently, thinking hard.

After a few minutes, Ruby scoffed in disbelief.

"Well if you really want me out of your hair, we need to go back to the motel that you left like a bat out of hell," she informed him. "I parked there."

Sam groaned internally.

"Don't stick around," he told her.

"Don't worry, I get the picture. I'm not wanted here," she snapped.

Sam made a u-turn, carefully reentering the motel parking lot. He watched his room warily, alert for any tiny movement in the curtains.

"Don't come crying to me for help when Lilith starts sending her goons after you two morons," she grumbled as she switched cars. Sam breathed a sigh of relief when she was gone and cradled his head in his hands. Knowing Ruby, he doubted she would stay away long. Sam knew that if Ruby found out Alice was still alive, she would come after her. He also knew from recent personal experience that Alice would immediately go all vengeful-spirit if she saw Ruby.

It was shaping up to be a real mess.

Sam ended up just grabbing burgers and a chicken sandwich from a nearby Mcdonalds. He almost forgot the food, but remembered in the nick of time that it was his alibi. Of course, he hadn't needed an alibi an hour ago.

The secrets in their little group were piling up by the minute, and Sam just hoped he could keep up with them all. The stakes were too high for mistakes at this point. All he wanted to do was keep his options open, but he knew he was juggling a dangerous handful of allies.

He forced his concerns to the back of his mind as he approached their room carefully, listening as he snuck closer. Silence from within. Tentatively, he knocked. After a minute, he heard the lock click, though the door did not open. He waited, and finally stepped in, grimacing at the thought of what he might see.

The scene inside was tame, however. All the lights were off, air moist with steam that had no doubt come from a scalding shower. It fogged the mirror, reducing Sam's reflection to a blurry silhouette as he entered.

Dean, in boxers and a t-shirt, had gotten up from bed to open the door, and now crawled back under the covers next to a lump that Sam assumed was Alice. He disappeared completely under the thick blanket and was soon snoring in sync with her.

Despite himself, Sam smiled a little.

 _Cute,_ he thought.

He set his laptop up at the table and got down to business. Bobby had taught him that research was as much a part of life for a good hunter as field work. Or, as he had so colorfully put it, 'Idjits who do more than run around out here with silver knives and empty heads'.

_"Watch it Singer, or one of those silver knives might end up in your gut," Alice growled back._

Sam's memory of the incident was vivid. Based on that erased experience, he knew better than to ever let Alice Smith and Bobby Singer meet. It was a true cat vs. dog scenario.

Hours of research spotted with Youtube breaks passed before the two lumps under the blanket did anything besides snore to indicate they were alive. Finally, the smaller lump stirred, stretched and groaned. Slowly, Alice emerged, much like a hungover caterpillar pushing it's way painfully through pupation into adulthood. She stumbled her way from bed to the bathroom, where she stayed long enough for Dean to make it back to consciousness as well.

"What time is it?" he asked Sam, making a sluggish beeline for the mini fridge. He retrieved the Mcdonalds, and plopped down across from Sam with it.

"Five," Sam replied. He reached back and pulled the curtain aside so Dean could see the fading light outside.

"Mmm," was Dean's only response as he carefully considered the contents of the bag.

Alice stepped out of the bathroom looking none the worse for wear, though her hair was an unholy mess.

"Not a bad remedy, eh?" Dean said through a mouthful of cheeseburger, nudging Alice suggestively as she pulled up a chair.

"Beats a bloody mary," she shrugged.

Dean looked disappointed, and she laughed at his expression.

"It was good," she amended.

Sam cleared his throat loudly, and the two focused on their food.

"So, Alice," Sam began. "What have you been up to these days?"

"Aside from helping save your bacon? Dodging a washed up reaper reject, chasing vampires and laying low. What about you guys? You up to anything aside from dangling your bacon over the figurative firepit?"

"Uh..."

Sam chose his words carefully while Dean glared at him intensely over his cheeseburger, silently informing him that he still didn't want Alice to know he was hellbound.

"Well, it's complicated," Sam said. "Basically, there's this gun."

"A colt," Dean put in through a full mouth.

"Right, a colt. _The_ Colt, made by Samuel Colt in 1835. I'm sure you've heard of it."

"The legendary magic kill-all? Duh. Every hunter who ever lived has heard of it," Alice replied. "It's a myth."

"Now who needs to be more open-minded?" Dean asked smugly.

"I mean... is it?" Alice asked, eyebrows piqued with keen interest.

"No. It's real. And all the legends are true," Sam attested.

"How can you be so sure?"

"We've seen it. And used it."

"On what?"

"A vampire and a few demons."

"We used it on the yellow-eyed son of a bitch that killed our parents," Dean put in.

"Yellow-eyed. You mean... you killed a prince of hell," Alice said. She sounded awestruck, something neither of the Winchesters had ever heard from her. "Well that's... big. That's some big fish. I'm honestly impressed. So, this gun. You have it?"

"That's the thing. It got away from us."

"Wrong! It was stolen," Dean spat, expression darkening.

"Ok!" Alice sounded surprised at Dean's aggression. "Bad blood. Understandable, given the gun's value. Who has it now?"

"Bela Talbot. She deals in the occult."

"Sam's being generous," Dean interrupted. "She's a skeevy, two-faced gold digger who doesn't give half a crap about anything or anyone except herself."

"You and her have history?" Alice asked, tone carefully flat.

"Unpleasant history," Dean growled. He caught her double meaning after a minute, and quickly backtracked. "I mean- Not like- I didn't- _We_ didn't-"

"What Dean's trying to say is that it was strictly professional," Sam supplied.

"I'd hardly call it professional," Dean grumbled. "I mean, we were professional, but Bela..."

"I get the picture," Alice said with amusement. "So, where is she now?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Sam sighed. "Without much luck, honestly."

"Do you have her number?"

That gave both Sam and Dean pause.

"She burns through numbers pretty fast," Dean said, but he pulled out his phone anyway. "This is the last one she called us from."

"Does she like to talk?"

"Please. The only thing that bitch loves more than the sound of her own voice is money," Dean sneered.

"Wow, kismesis much?" Alice snarked back.

"What?"

"Nevermind. Either of you two know anyone who can set up a phone trace?"

"No. Do you?" Sam frowned.

"If I did, would I have asked?" Alice rolled her eyes. "No. But this is a big city, and that's not an especially rare skill set. We put out a few lines, ask the right people the right questions, we could have a location on your thief by morning."

"Are you serious?" Dean asked excitedly.

"Yeah. We should get moving right away though," Alice said, standing. "We're gonna need to visit a lot of computer repair shops, unless we get really lucky. We'll start with the ones advertising data recovery, password resetting, that kind of thing."

"Well what are we waiting for?" Dean demanded, practically running to grab his shoes.

"Ok, but I do have one condition," Alice said severely.

"What?"

"When we find this broad, no hate-snogging in front of me," she snickered.

"No what?" Sam frowned.

"Nevermind," Alice said again, grinning like it was a joke that they weren't in on.

* * *

Ruby did not leave as Sam asked her to. His dismissal of her was unacceptable and incredibly suspicious. She felt that she had gained Sam's trust in the months since Dean sold his soul. Sam was desperate, grasping at straws in attempt after vain attempt to save his brother. Listening to a demon who claimed to cling to a sliver of her old humanity was the least of the sins he was willing to commit in the name of his crusade.

She parked in the used car lot across from the Winchester's motel, a geographical setup that almost seemed too convenient to be true. She could stake them out completely unnoticed and figure out exactly why Sam was suddenly so opposed to accepting her assistance.

Fifteen minutes into her vigil, she noticed a man approaching. Someone had roughed him up pretty recently. His left cheek was just beginning to darken with a fist-sized bruise. From his suit and clean-shaven appearance, Ruby guessed he was a car salesman. Possibly the only creatures in existence that could be sleazier and sneakier than demons.

"Good morning, Ma'am," he greeted her. "My name's Billy. How may I be of service to you today?"

"Billy, huh?"

Ruby quickly decided that as fun as it would be to fuck with this guy for a few hours to pass the time, she needed to focus. She couldn't afford to miss a second's worth of movement from across the street.

"Well, I'm here for an upgrade," Ruby said sweetly. "There's just one problem I keep running into. This car has a specific sound system that I've grown used to. It's spoiled me. I couldn't possibly buy something that didn't have the exact system."

"Well, what system would that be?" Billy asked.

Ruby stepped out of the car, but left the door open.

"I'm not sure exactly what it's called. You think you could take a look?"

She gestured into the car, smiling coyly.

"Of course."

Unsuspecting, Billy leaned down to poke his head into her car. Instantly, Ruby pounced, grabbing him by the neck and slamming his head in the door. Billy cried out weakly, but only had time to do so once. Ruby slammed the door brutally three more times before she let Billy's limp body fall to the ground. She didn't bother checking to see if he was dead or not. It didn't matter much to her. The important thing was that he was out of her hair.

She started to get back into her car, then paused to consider Billy, lying prone and bloodied in plain sight. With a beleaguered sigh, Ruby kicked and nudged him under the car next to her. It was sloppy, but it was as concealed as she needed him to be.

She got back in the car and began her stakeout in earnest.

Hours passed without so much as a rustle from the motel, and Ruby grew bored. She gazed longingly at Billy, still unmoving where she'd left him. in retrospect, she wished she would have kept him conscious and tormented him a little.

Finally, her patience paid off. Sam and Dean walked out of their motel room, accompanied by a third person. Ruby was too far away to see their face, but guessed from their build that it was a woman. The three of them climbed into the impala and rolled out. Ruby quickly started the engine and took off in pursuit. Sam knew what her car looked like, but she wasn't worried about him noticing her. If his earlier behavior was any indication, he was trying to keep her presence a secret from Dean and possibly this mysterious third wheel as well. If he called her out, it would be discreetly.

She followed them all over town. They seemed to be hopping from one tech repair shop to another, systematically working their way through Phoenix. The entire time, Sam and Dean stayed in the car, letting their friend do all the legwork. Ruby stayed too far back to get a good look at her, but her curiosity mounted every time the woman disappeared into a shop. She decided while tailing them through traffic that the next chance she got, she would drive past the woman on her way into a store to get a better look at her.

At their next stop, however, the routine changed. Dean went into the store with the woman while Sam lagged behind them, gaze sweeping over street until his eyes met Rubys.

She'd been made.

Sam said a few words to Dean, who shrugged and followed the woman into the store. With his brother safely out of sight, Sam stormed toward Ruby's car.

"What did I tell you?!" Sam hissed furiously when he reached her.

"Nothing!" Ruby snapped back. "That's the problem. You really seem to be underestimating the threat Lilith poses to you, Sam! All I'm trying to do is keep you alive. Why is that so hard for you to get through you thick skull?! Cutting me off and keeping me in the dark is like blindfolding yourself and waiting for Lilith to rip your throat out!"

"Look, I believe you," Sam said heatedly, glancing anxiously over his shoulder. "I trust you, ok? I just need you to trust me back a little."

"Oh, you trust me now? And how long did that take?" Ruby demanded. "How much begging and pleading and proving myself did I have to do to earn your 'trust'?"

She airquoted the word.

"Now you want me to trust you, based on what? How virtuous you are?"

"What do you want Ruby?" Sam demanded. "You want me to prove myself? Is that it?"

"All I want is for you to stop keeping secrets from me," Ruby replied. "Stop treating me like I'm here to stab you in the back."

"You might be."

"That doesn't sound like trust to me."

"Ok! Ok, you're right. This is hard for me, I'm sorry. I'm just trying- I'm trying to..."

"To what?!"

"I'm just trying to make the best of a messed up situation, ok?" Sam exclaimed. "I trust you, but Dean doesn't. He doesn't want us working together anymore."

"Wow, shocker."

"It's serious, Ruby. He's to the point where he'll kill you if he sees you again," Sam insisted.

"Aw. It's cute that you're concerned about me Sam, but I can handle Dean," Ruby sneered.

"Yeah, well I don't want you or anyone else 'handling' Dean," Sam shot back.

It was the truth. Ruby could tell that much. She also knew Sam well enough to know that it wasn't the whole truth. He was a natural rebel. If anything, Dean's disapproval would push him to work with Ruby in the end.

"Ok. So you're protecting me. You're protecting Dean. What else is going on?" she pressed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"A whole damn lot."

Again, not a lie, but _way_ too vague for her to work with.

"Tell me."

"It's too much. We don't have time right now. If Dean sees you-"

"Ok, so don't tell me everything. There's only one thing I really want to know right now."

"What's that?"

"Who's your new lady friend?"

Sam's expression was unreadable. Stoic. A carefully engineered mask, designed to keep Ruby from gleaning any information from it.

"A hunter. She's helping us work a case."

"Oh yeah. What case is that?"

"Look, I promise I'll tell you everything," Sam vowed, "But right now, I need you to leave before Dean comes out. Please!"

Ruby considered resisting, pushing him further until he spilled his guts like a man disemboweled. She decided not to test her luck though. If Dean came out and she was forced to kill him in self defense it would ruin everything she had worked so hard to orchestrate.

"Fine," she conceded. She got in her car, and grabbed a piece of paper out of the glove box. "I won't be far behind you, Sam. You call me when you're ready to meet."

She scrawled a number on the crinkled scrap, and handed it to him through the window.

"Don't keep me waiting."

She pulled off, leaving Sam jogging back to the store. In her rearview mirror, she saw Dean and the woman exit the shop to meet Sam. Though her back was turned to Ruby, the demon saw that she was dressed all in black, with blonde hair that fell just below her shoulders.

The silhouette seemed hauntingly familiar, but Ruby shrugged it off. Lots of hunters wore all black. It didn't mean anything.

* * *

"Any luck?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, finally," Dean replied. "Get this; there's a kid in there who says he'll get us Bela's location for a hundred bucks."

"We need your pool money," Alice said, holding her hand out to Sam. "Fork it over."

Sam rolled his eyes and handed her the cash.

"When does he want to do it?" he asked.

"As soon as we pay," Dean answered.

"Huh," Sam said, following them back into the shop. "That was... kind of ridiculously easy."

"Yeah, assuming it works and we don't just waste a hundred bucks," Dean said.

"If he doesn't give us a location, we'll just take the money back," Alice assured them.

They walked up to the counter, where Dean rang the bell sharply. A door opened from behind the counter and a scrawny kid in his twenties emerged, face full of acne and hair full of grease. He adjusted wire-framed glasses perched precariously on a thin nose.

"Wow, you're actually back," he said in awe. "You got the money?"

"We got it," Alice said, holding it up to show him.

"Wow! A hundred bucks! Just that fast, huh?" the kid exclaimed, taking it quickly and counting the twenties. "Wow. Well, I mean, come on then. I'm all set up back here. All I need to do is hook your phone up, and make the call."

They started to follow him through the door when Sam's phone rang.

"You two go on," he told them.

"Who is it?" Dean asked.

"Bobby."

"Right. Cross your fingers Sammy."

"Uh-huh. Hey Bobby, what's up?"

Alice and Dean followed the kid, Rupert, leaving Sam in the public part of the store to take his call.

"Let me see your phone," Rupert told Dean. "Unlocked, if you please."

Dean complied, handing his phone over. He peered over Rupert's shoulder as he scrolled through Dean's settings. Rupert noticed and turned so Dean couldn't see anymore.

"Trade secrets," he frowned severely.

"Right."

Dean looked around while Rupert worked. The shop's back room was small and crammed with computers of varying types. There were laptops of all shapes and sizes, desktop computers, and monitors that ranged from CRT's to LED's. Some were visibly cracked and Dean guessed that they were all broken, some less apparently than others.

"Ready. All you need to do is call the number," Rupert told Dean, handing him his phone.

"Ok. How long do I need to keep her on the line?"

"What?"

"I mean, don't I need to keep the call going for sixty seconds or something?" Dean asked.

"What is this, the eighties?" Rupert scoffed. "As long as she picks up, we'll have her location instantly."

He turned back to his laptop, muttering something under his breath about 'tech illiterates'. Dean looked at Alice and braced himself.

"Ok. Here goes," he said.

"Hey, don't talk to her if you can help it," Alice told him. "All we need is for her to pick up. Once she does, you hang up. The last thing we need is to tip her off to what we're doing and have her bolt."

Dean nodded and hit the call button.

It rang in his ear, the waiting tone seeming louder to Dean than it ever had before. Alice and Rupert were completely silent, watching with bated breath.

_Rrrrrriiiinnngggg._

_Rrrrrriiiinnngggg._

_Rrrrrriiiinnngggg._

_Rrrrrriiiinnngggg._

Dean's heart was pounding. Bela wasn't going to answer. She was too smart for that. She probably expected them to pull a move like this. Every time he'd gone up against her, she'd been three steps ahead of him. Why should this time be any different?

The ringing cut off abruptly, and Dean expected to hear a message.

"Dean. What a pleasant surprise," came Bela's accented voice, startling Dean. "To what do I owe the pleasure? You're not just calling to rant at me about the Colt again, are you? I think we're all tired of beating that dead horse."

Rupert gave two thumbs up and Alice made a slicing motion at her throat. It was surprisingly hard for Dean to hang the phone up without snapping back at Bela, but he managed it.

"Whatcha got for us Rupie?" Alice asked excitedly.

"Please don't ever call me that," Rupert groaned. He wrote down an address and handed it over to Alice.

"Whatever floats your boat. Nice doing business with you."

"Come back anytime," Rupert said smugly, looking incredibly pleased with himself. "I'm always open for business. And I can do _waaay_ more than trace a crappy call."

"We'll keep you in mind," Alice assured him on her way out.

Dean followed her, hardly daring to believe what had just happened.

"That's it?" he demanded. "We know where she is?"

"Guess we're gonna find out," Alice replied, handing him the address. "Time to schedule you two a hate-date."

"Will you _please_ explain what that means?" Dean groaned. "It's the same thing as the hate-snogging and the kissy sisses, right? You keep talking about the same thing?"

"Kissy sisses!" Alice roared, laughing hysterically. "Oh my god! Kissy Sisses!"

"What happened?" Sam asked, following them out of the shop.

"We got it," Dean informed him. Alice was gasping for breath and struggling to stay upright. Dean didn't get what was so funny, but he'd really managed to crack her up somehow.

"For real?"

"For real. What did Bobby have to say?"

"He, uh... he has a lead on something else."

"What's that?"

Sam eyed Alice, who had collapsed panting in the back seat of the impala, mumbling to herself and chuckling sporadically.

"He's got a line on a demon who might know who holds your contract," Sam said quietly.

"Really? Where?"

"Indiana."

Dean glanced at the address Rupert had gotten for them.

"Damn. Guess it would have been too easy for him to be next door to Bela," Dean sighed. "Who do we go after first?"

"Why do we have to choose?" Sam asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we should divide and conquer. You and Alice go after the demon, I'll get the Colt."

"No way," Dean said immediately. "There's no way I'm letting you go after Bela alone. She's too damn slippery."

"Dean, I won't go alone," Sam said persuasively. "I'll get Bobby to come with me. I'll be fine. Besides, I honestly think it's better if you stay away from Bela."

"What? What's that supposed to mean?"

"She knows how to get under your skin, Dean. You don't think straight around her and she knows it."

Dean opened his mouth to argue, but couldn't deny that Sam had a point. He hated Bela Talbot with every fiber of his being and unlike the rage that usually sharpened him, his anger toward her threw him off balance. Left him vulnerable.

"I'll be ok, Dean," Sam promised. "This could be it, man. You get the name of the demon holding your contract, I'll get the weapon to take them out."

Sam saw something in Dean's eyes that he hadn't seen for a while. He saw hope.

"Hey!" Alice called from the car. "So are we gonna go get this gun, or what?"

"Change of plans," Dean called back, climbing into the driver's seat. "How do you feel about a demon hunt?"

"How do you feel about a hot slice of apple pie?" Alice asked rhetorically. "Sounds great, but what about the Colt?"

"Sam's going to get it with a friend of ours. You and me have a demon to interrogate."

Too late, Dean realized the flaw in this plan. The chances that Alice wouldn't find out about his deal during this hunt were nil. Maybe it wouldn't matter though, Dean though hopefully.

Who cared if Alice discovered he'd lost his soul just as they found a way to win it back?


	21. Gathering Storm

"So, Sam, spill," Alice urged enthusiastically from the back seat. "Where are we heading? What kind of omens are we looking at? I mean, are we chasing omens, or is this confirmed, like your hunter friend actually saw a demon in the field?"

"Whoa there cowgirl," Dean chuckled. "It's a demon hunt, not a Vegas run."

"Aw, come on. I've been cooped up in a truck parked behind some cacti off the highway for weeks. I'm ready for some action," Alice said.

"What, last night wasn't enough action for you?"

"I barely remember last night. Everything between you tricking me into 8 ball, and me shaking down that car salesman... total blackout."

"That's still more action than most people get in a weekend," Sam pointed out.

"Oh yeah, cause we're exactly like most people," Alice scoffed. "Now are you gonna tell me where we're heading, or do I have to beat it out of you?"

"How about we save the beatings for the bad guys?" Dean suggested.

"Tell me where they are, and I will."

"In this case, Cincinnati," Sam said. "3681 Coast Creek drive, Cincinnati."

"That's really specific," Alice said suspiciously.

"We've had lines out looking for this guy," Dean explained.

"Parsifal," Sam put it. "That's his name."

"Really? One specific demon?"

"Uh... kind of. Not this demon, actually. This one just has info on the one we're really looking for."

"Uh-huh. And this demon you're _really_ looking for... What do you want with them?"

Sam opened his mouth, but shut it again when Dean caught his eye with sharp glare.

"That's just the job, right?" Dean said. "Hunt things, save people."

"If you say so," Alice conceded.

"Yeah Dean," Sam muttered. "If you say so."

"Huh?" Alice asked.

"Anyway," Dean said loudly. "We're splitting up. You and me go after the demon, Sam'll take care of the colt."

"Stupendous," Alice said.

"Why are you so psyched about this hunt anyway?" Sam asked.

"Demons were always my family's bread and butter," Alice explained. "It's a very particular skill set, and you know what they say. Use it or lose it."

"Your family," Dean mused. "You mean the paramilitary nutjobs shacked up in Arkansas?"

"The what now?" Alice frowned. "No, Allison and my Grandma. The only family I ever had. What nutjobs are you talking about?"

"Your extended family, I guess," Sam said. "Dean tracked them down when he was looking for you after Loki sent us back."

"My Grandmother never mentioned any extended family."

"Well, the way they told it your Grandma had a serious falling out with the rest of the Smith clan," Dean offered. "Before you were born, if memory serves."

"Huh."

Alice got quiet for the rest of the ride back to the motel, lost in thought.

"Ok then," Dean said. "I'll pack the room up. Alice, throw Sam your keys, and-"

"Wait, what?"

"What?"

"What do you mean, throw Sam my keys?"

"Exactly that. Sam needs a ride."

"Why don't we take my truck? It's her maiden voyage," Alice suggested.

"Alice, word of advice?" Sam chuckled. "Pick your battles. And never pick a battle with Dean over his car."

"That," Dean pointed out as he left the car, "Is some sage advice."

Alice rolled her eyes, but handed the keys over.

"Whatever. As long as we can slip some Aerosmith into the road trip playlist, I'm cool."

"Yeah, Dean's playlist isn't a winning battle either," Sam sighed.

"Me and Dean like the same music," Alice frowned.

"I wouldn't be so sure. Dean's more... Led Zeppelin, Metallica. Basically, if it came out after 1980, he'll call it garbage."

Alice bristled.

"Well he better not ever say that about Get a Grip. At least, not while I'm in earshot. I won't stand for that kind of blasphemy."

She thought about it a little more, and her frown deepened.

"Anyway, Metallica wasn't even around until the '80's."

"Wow. I can already tell you two are gonna have a blast on this hunt," Sam laughed.

* * *

**3 Days Later**

* * *

"OK, so this Parsifal is, what... wreaking hellish havoc on the Ohio justice system?"

Alice and Dean were staking out the Cincinnati circuit court.

"Not sure," Dean replied to Alice's question. "All I know is that he's possessing a lawyer, guy named Eric Stalls."

"And instead of terrorizing the world, this demon gets it's kicks by holding down a five figure job?" Alice asked skeptically.

"Beats me."

"Where did this info come from anyway? I mean, your friend Bobby, how good is he?"

"Oh, Bobby's the best," Dean said immediately. "He's got the biggest collection of lore, best network of hunters you can imagine. He's like an uncle to me and Sam."

"Ah. Got it. So he's reliable."

"Hell yeah."

"Alright then. Let me see this guy's photo again."

Dean handed her his phone, open to Stalls' website.

"Sleazy-looking, even for a lawyer," Alice commented. "Hey, how is a lawyer like a catfish?"

"They're both bottom-feeders. Heard it before."

"Crap! Is there any terrible joke you don't already know?"

"Doubt it. Terrible jokes are only ones I know. Speaking of, knock knock."

"Seriously? Aren't those a little played out?"

"Come on, I bit for you. Knock knock!"

"Ugh," Alice groaned. "Who's there?"

"Wooden shoe."

"Wooden shoe who?"

"Wooden shoe like to know."

"Ha ha. Hey, knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Parsifal, getting away because you're not paying attention. Four o'clock."

Dean looked, just in time to see the lawyer hop into a white Buick.

"Aaand, that's our cue," he said, starting up the impala.

"We should have come in my truck," Alice pouted. "Your car's great, don't get me wrong, but it's not exactly low key."

"Right, and a pickup truck is?" Dean shot back.

Alice threw her hands up in surrender.

"Not gonna go there. Let's just figure out where this guy's holed up so we can set our trap. I'm itching to get to the interrogation phase of this expedition."

They followed Parsifal to a high end apartment complex. Alice whistled in appreciation.

"Nice digs. If I ever quit the life, I'm finding me a lawyer to settle down with. Maybe I will anyway."

Dean cleared his throat.

"Ooook. That's nice. So, how are we gonna do this?"

"I'd call it a night, come back in the morning after he leaves for work. Trap the place, wait for him to get home from work."

"We're assuming this demon keeps a tight schedule."

"According to your uncle Bobby's info, he does."

"Super freaking weird."

"Yeah, well we've got time to kill until then," Alice pointed out. "You still stay sober when you're working?"

"I've been playing a little fast and loose with that rule lately," Dean admitted.

"Aw, don't tell me you gave in to my bad influence," Alice tsked playfully.

"Hardly. Times got tough."

"Stress drinking. Well, I can't say I've ever known a hunter who didn't have an alcoholic streak. What do you say we indulge a little? Then, you know... we can see where it goes from there."

The look she gave him was pure suggestion, and he was fully receptive.

"Now you're talking," he grinned.

* * *

Meanwhile, four states away, Sam waited impatiently outside an upscale hotel. The location they got from the trace had been vacated, but he stayed on Bela's tail and managed to track her all the way back around to Colorado. Bobby had been tied up when he called to ask for backup, but he hadn't mentioned that to Dean. He had another number.

Ruby tried to sneak up on him again, but he caught sight of her this time in his rearview mirror. He rolled his window down before she could knock.

"Well Sam, look at you. On the ball," she said cheerfully.

"Ok, here's the deal," Sam said, all business off the bat. "You want to convince me you're not like other demons, here's your chance. Help me get this gun from Bela, but no demony tricks. No collateral damage, and absolutely no civilian casualties. We do this my way, or you hit the high way. Understood?"

"Yes sir," she smirked.

"I mean it!"

"I said fine! Now are we gonna get this bitch, or do you want to talk about it some more?"

Sam got out of the car, still torn, but doing his best to hide it.

"We're going to get the gun. As for Bela..."

"No casualties? Well then, what are we going to do with her?"

Sam didn't respond.

"You haven't really thought this through all the way, have you?" Ruby observed.

"There's a lot of improvisation in this line of work."

"Improvisation. Right. And how's that been working for you so far? I mean, if you ask me, you keep making a lot of extra work for yourself. Leaving all these loose ends."

"What loose ends?"

"Come on Sam, I know you've tangled with Bela before. If you were smart, you would have killed her the first time she crossed you. You would still have the colt, and all this trouble could have been avoided."

"That right there is what I'm talking about," Sam said, lowering his voice as they entered the hotel. "That's not the way we do things. And if you really want to help me, that's not the way you do things anymore either."

Ruby sighed beleaguredly.

"So what, no killing, no exceptions? Ever?"

"Not if it's human, no."

Ruby wanted to say how boring that sounded, but she bit her tongue.

"Whatever you say. You're the boss."

"Shhh. This is her room," Sam said, hurrying ahead of her with his gun drawn.

"Why the gun? I thought our mandate was no lethal force," Ruby whispered mockingly.

Sam glared at her for a moment. Then he kicked in the door to Bela's room and surged inside.

It only took him a few seconds to realize that it was completely empty.

"Damn it!" he cursed. "We missed her!"

"You think?" Ruby said sarcastically. She peeked into an empty wastebasket. "You know, if we find some hair I could perform a spell. Track her down like that."

She snapped her fingers and Sam shot her a stern look.

"Oh, come on! You really want to keep dancing with her like this?" Ruby demanded.

"I mean..."

"It's a simple spell, Sam. Easy ingredients. No one gets hurt."

"I... I guess it's worth a shot," Sam conceded.

"That's the smartest thing I've heard you say so far."

Ruby opened a drawer, and pulled out a handful of wigs.

"Aaand, these'll do the trick. There's no way there aren't a few real hairs mixed up in these mops."

The bedside phone rang.

Once. Twice. Three times.

"You gonna get that?" Ruby asked.

Sam strode over and snatched the phone.

"Hello?"

"Sam! So good to hear your voice. A refreshing change from your brother's rudeness."

"Bela," Sam said, clenching his jaw. "Where are you?"

"Oh, Sam, please, let's not waste our time or breath. Really, you're becoming quite the pest."

"So give up the Colt. We'll both go our separate ways, no hard feelings."

"I can't do that. I also can't have you chasing me around like a mad dog, so I hope there won't be any hard feelings over what happens next."

"What?"

"Good-bye, Sam. Tell Dean I send my regards."

She hung up on him.

"Well? What did she say?" Ruby asked.

Before Sam could answer, the room exploded.

"FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!"

"Shit!" Ruby yelled. She raised her gun.

"Ruby, no!" Sam yelled back, tossing his gun to the ground.

"You're shitting me!" Ruby growled. Never the less, she followed Sam's example.

"ON THE GROUND, ON THE GROUND! NOW!"

Sam went, and Ruby followed suit again.

"Sam, what the HELL are we doing!" she demanded in a hiss as they were cuffed. "I can take all these feebs out with a wave of my hand!"

"That's not the way we're gonna do this!" Sam snapped back.

Ruby snarled like a rabid dog, but stayed down.

"Well, well well," came a voice from above.

Sam frowned in recognition. He looked up to see a face that it took him a moment to place.

"Sam Winchester. It's been a while," Agent Victor Henricksen said.

Sam groaned as he was hauled to his feet.

"Who's your lady friend?" Henricksen asked, eyeing Ruby up and down.

"Eat me, pig," Ruby panted as she was dragged upright.

"Hm. Feisty. And I bet she's every bit as psychotic as you and your brother. Where is Dean, by the way?"

Sam set his jaw and said nothing.

"Not feeling chatty? That's ok. We can talk once we're somewhere much, much less comfortable," Henricksen said. He directed his gaze to one of the feds. "Let's get moving. Time is of the essence."

They pushed Sam and Ruby out the door, Ruby glaring at Sam the whole way.

"Your way is really impressive, Sam," she growled. "Now what?"

"Now keep quiet," Sam said quickly.

"Sure. Quiet."

* * *

Dean and Alice lockpicked their way Parsifal's apartment, and split up to take stock of the terrain, so to speak.

"I can see why Parsifal chose this guy," Dean called as he made his way from the bedroom to the bathroom. "This is a hell of a bachelor pad."

"Hell yeah. This kitchen is unbelievable. Screw dating a lawyer, I've got half a mind to go to school and be one myself."

Dean popped his head back into the living room, which was separated from the kitchen only by a bar. Alice stood behind it, perusing Parsifal's liquor selection.

"So, I'm thinking we put a trap over the front door and nab the sucker the minute he walks in," Dean said.

"Mmm... If we're planning on interrogating him, I'd really prefer to have him further from the front door," Alice thought aloud. "What with the screaming and all."

"Well, these are apartments," Dean pointed out. "We'll need to keep the noise to a minimum anyway."

"Yeah. Well, it would still be easier to put a trap under the rug in the living room. One on the bedroom ceiling too in case he doesn't wander that way."

"Ok, well what if he doesn't go in the bedroom either?" Dean argued. "Over the front door is the easiest way to do this, guaranteed catch."

"And you want me to what, shush Parsifal while I torx him?" Alice demanded, getting annoyed.

"Ok... ok. You've got a point."

Alice opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice.

"Vitamin C?" she offered.

"I'm good, thanks."

Alice poured herself a glass of juice, thinking as she drank and went through the cabinets.

"Ok, noggin time. You, uh... you used to have an FBI badge," Alice remembered. "You still have it?"

"Yeah, and more besides."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Name an agency, I've got a fake badge for it."

"Seriously? How about... Health official?"

"Glove compartment."

"Perfect. Ok, so here's my idea. We go with your plan, trap Parsifal by the front door, but give ourselves enough wiggle room to get out past him. These apartments are big. You flash your badge to the neighbors within earshot of bloodcurdling screams, tell them there's a gas leak or something."

"Get them to evacuate for the night," Dean realized.

"Exactly. Problem solved."

"I'll drink to that one," Dean said, gesturing to the carton of OJ.

"Ah... sorry, there really wasn't much left," Alice said. "He's got milk though."

"Never mind. I'll start painting the trap."

"Good idea. I'm gonna look around a little more. Maybe the guy Parcifal's riding has a safe or something."

"We're not here to rob the guy."

"We're saving him from a demon," Alice scoffed. "There's nothing wrong with taking a little payment for our services."

"We're also torturing his body for information," Dean pointed out. "Imagine waking up worked over _and_ worked over. It'd be like getting kicked in one nut, then the other."

"Good God you sound like my Grandmother," Alice groaned. "Fine. But on the off chance that this guy has antique knives, they're mine. Or... any knives, really. Man, I hate that my collection got lost when I died."

With his back turned to her, Dean froze, eyes widening. The mention of knives reminded him that he knew where at least one of her old ones was.

He shook the spray paint and shoved all thoughts of Ruby and the demon-killing knife to the back of his mind. He would find the right time to tell Alice about her old nemesis. Now was definitely not it.

* * *

Sam and Ruby sat in a cramped jail cell, chained hand and foot.

"Ok, Winchester, we've been doing this your way for about an hour now... what, according to the rules of improvisation, is the next move?"

Sam sat silently, glaring through the bars at the door separating the holding area from the office of the sheriff's station.

"You know what? I'm done with this," Ruby scoffed. She stretched her arms out in front of her, and shook them. The chains fell to the floor with a clank.

"Ruby..."

"What?! I'm not hurting anyone!" she exclaimed, standing. "But I'm also not going to sit here in a cell playing cops and robbers. How is this productive Sam? I can bust us both out of here right now! How the hell is sitting here waiting for them to transfer us to supermax doing any good? How does this help us find the Colt?"

Sam had nothing to say to that.

"That's what I thought. It's my turn to improvise," Ruby said.

With a flick of her wrist, Sam's chains fell as well.

"Ruby, I want to get out of here too, but I don't think now's the right time," Sam said.

"Well when is the right time?"

"When we're on the move again. It'll be the easiest thing, easier for us to pull off, easier for the feds to explain away in a report-"

"Are you kidding me?" Ruby demanded. "You're worried about the headlines?"

"I'm worried that-"

Sam shut up quickly as the door opened and a man in a suit walked through.

"Ruby, sit down."

"You are _shitting_ me!"

"Sit down!"

Ruby pushed him aside, grabbed the pillow off the bed and screamed into it.

"Sam Winchester," the man said as he approached. "I'm deputy director Steven Groves. This is truly a pleasure."

Sam gave him the same silent treatment he'd been giving all the feds. Behind him, Ruby flung the pillow back onto the thin mattress in frustration. When she saw Groves, she froze.

"Well hell there," Ruby said, her eyes becoming black as ink in an instant.

Groves looked her over, and curled his lip back in disdain. He blinked, revealing eyes that matched Ruby's. Sam stiffened, his gaze flitting between the two demons.

"Well, isn't this a surprise. A hunter and a demon caged up together, and no bloodshed. You mind telling me why you haven't disemboweled him yet?" he demanded of Ruby.

"I was just getting to that part," Ruby assured him.

"What?" Sam asked sharply.

"I'd hate to hog all the fun though," Ruby said coyly. She nodded her head and the cell door clicked and swung open. "The more the merrier. Why don't you start us off?"

Groves grinned.

"Generous of you. Don't mind if I do."

He stepped into the cell, cracking his knuckles as he advanced on Sam.

"Ruby, what the-"

Before Sam could finish his sentence, Ruby attacked Groves. The element of surprise gave her an edge, but he quickly overpowered her.

"Sam! Help!"

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus," Sam began reciting.

Ruby and Groves cried out together.

"Sorry, kids," Groves panted. "I've got to cut this short. It's gonna be a long night."

He threw his head back and smoked out of his host, disappearing through a vent in the ceiling. The FBI director he was riding dropped like a stone. He had probably been dead for months.

Ruby collapsed to the ground, panting.

"Never... do that... while I'm in the room," she hissed.

"But the binding spell-"

"Ok, well it still feels like crap!" she yelled.

"What in the hell is going on in here!"

Henricksen and three local officers ran into the room, guns drawn. Ruby stood, and flung them all against the wall with a wave of her hand.

"Ruby, DON'T!" Sam yelled, leaping to his feet.

"Relax Sam, they all look like big boys," she assured him. "Eat their wheaties, drink their ovaltine. I'm sure they can handle a few knocks."

Sam just glared at her.

"I'm _not_ hurting them, ok boy scout? What I _am_ going to do is find my knife, and get out of this shithole. Whether you come with me or not is completely up to you."

She strolled past Henricksen and the local police without sparing them a glance. Sam hurried after her, locking eyes briefly with Henricksen.

"Winchester!" he demanded, visibly freaked out. "What the hell is going-"

Sam ignored him, and followed Ruby into the reception area. Behind them, the door slammed shut, and Sam guessed that Ruby released Henricksen and the others. Immediately, they began pounding on the door. At the desk, a young receptionist shrieked and jumped up, pressing herself into a corner of the room.

"I should have done that back at the hotel," Ruby seethed, disregarding the girl. "That's an hour of my life I'll never get back."

She started tearing through a bankers box on the desk, putting Sam's effects to the side as she searched for her own.

"You know, a little subtlety goes a long way in this line of work," Sam sighed, reclaiming his guns, knives and IDs.

"Yeah, subtlety's great, but not at the cost of effectiveness," Ruby scowled. "We need to get out of here. Before it's too late."

"You don't say. If Henricksen hasn't already called for backup, I'm sure he'll bring the sky down on us after what he saw you do. Nothing like a freaked out federal agent who's been through something he can't rationalize to have you hunted for across all forty-eight states."

"Oooh, scary, the full force of Uncle Sam," Ruby mocked. "Forget them. There are demons coming for us. If you think that one back there wasn't running to get the troops, you're even dumber than you look."

"Well if that's true, we have to get these people out of here," Sam protested.

"We don't have time! I'm not talking about a few demons here, Sam. I'm talking about Lilith and her army coming down on you like a hammer. The best thing we can do for them is to get as far away from here as possible."

"And what, leave everyone else here and hope this demon army passes them over?"

"What's the alternative?! I'm not sure you understand exactly how large of a following Lilith has amassed," Ruby yelled. "Trying to fight them would be suicide!"

"Even with your knife?"

"One knife against an army of demons. Those sound like winning odds to you? Look, it sucks that these people got involved in this, but they came looking for us! If they're caught in the crossfire, they only have themselves to blame!"

Ruby found her knife, clipped it's sheath to her belt and made for the door.

"I'm not leaving them here!" Sam called after her.

"Do what you need to do! I'm not dying again because you want to be the good shepherd to a bunch of paper pushing blue bloods," Ruby called back.

Sam cursed, then remembered the receptionist. He turned to see her wide-eyed, shaking and crouched in the corner. She was clutching a crucifix.

"Hey. I'm not going to hurt you," he assured her, holding his hands out placatingly.

"You-you were talking about demons," she stuttered. "I don't- What-"

She was interrupted as the door to the holding area burst open and Henricksen charged through with his gun drawn.

"Winchester! Down! Right now!"

Sam threw his hands up in the air.

"Henricksen! We need to leave, right now!" he said urgently.

"No one's going anywhere! Not until I get some answers, and probably not after that either!" Henricksen shouted. "What the hell happened back there?!"

"It's complicated. You're never going to believe me," Sam said.

"Don't be so sure about that," Henricksen shot back. "I just got force thrown against a wall, couldn't move a damn muscle. How the hell did you do that? Start talking before I start shooting!"

"It wasn't me!"

"So who then, the girl?"

The front door burst open with a terrible bang, and Henricksen whipped around in response, training his gun on Ruby as she barreled back into the station like a bat out of hell.

"Ruby? I thought you were leaving," Sam scowled.

"It's too late for that!" she snapped. "We're surrounded, and they're closing in fast. We need to get this place secure right now!"

"Who's closing in?" Henricksen demanded. In the corner, the receptionist started weeping.

Ruby ignored then both and turned to one of the deputies.

"Please tell me you have truckloads of salt in this pig pen," she said.

"What?"

"Salt, genius! We need it, and we need it now, or we're all going to die slow and painful!"

"I-I mean, we have rock salt in the store room. For the roads. They ice up bad, and we don't always have time to wait for the trucks," the deputy replied.

"Sam, get on it," Ruby ordered. "I'll draw some traps."

"Nobody move a muscle!" Henricksen shouted. "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but-"

"Look diversity day Mulder, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way!" Ruby snapped. "The easy way is, you go with Sam and do everything he tells you to. The hard way is I snap my fingers and you spend the meager time you have left on this earth pinned to the ceiling. Your choice."

Henricksen looked at Sam. He was angry, confused, and definitely scared.

"Come on," Sam urged. "I'll try to answer your questions, but she's right. Something really bad is coming, and if we don't get ready none of us are gonna make it out of here alive."

Henricksen narrowed his eyes, but holstered his weapon. Behind him, Ruby scrambled to draw hasty devil's traps beneath the windows and doors.

"Guess I don't really have a choice in the matter," he growled, eyeing Ruby warily.

* * *

Dean and Alice laid their trap. All that was left to do was wait. They sat behind the bar waiting to hear the door opening. After a few hours, they both borrowed pillows from the bedroom to sit on. Both expected the wait to be tedious, but it actually didn't turn out to be so bad.

"Is it just me, or did five o'clock hit awfully fast?" Alice observed.

"Well, you know what they say. Time flies when you're having fun," Dean replied.

"I don't think a lot of people would consider this fun," Alice pointed out with a laugh.

"What, sitting around chatting with an old friend?"

"Stalking a lawyer, camping out in his apartment all day and eating all his food."

"Eh, I don't know, I think a lot of people fantasize about that."

"Which part?"

"Hey, it's a pretty sweet pad. And come on! The guy had like, ten kinds of lunch meat."

Alice laughed at him, but quickly quieted herself.

"So unprofessional," she tsked.

"That's rich, coming from the woman who drank all the guy's juice."

"Juice is five dollars a jug. I think he'll survive."

She got quiet for a while.

"So, there was something I've been waiting for the right time to ask you," she finally said.

"Shoot."

"My family. The ones out in Arkansas. What were they like?"

"What, paramilitary nutjobs wasn't a vivid enough description for you?" Dean quipped.

"Come on, Dean."

"Ok. Ok, uh... disciplined, I guess. Organized. Suspicious as hell. They really weren't that happy about me and Sam being there."

"Huh."

Alice was quiet again, lost in thought.

"Are you, uh... thinking about... you know. Reaching out to them?" Dean asked.

She took her time with her answer.

"Thought about it," she said slowly. "I'll keep thinking about it, I guess, but... I don't know. I don't like the idea of seeking out a bunch of strangers... and for what? It's not going to be some big reunion. I had no idea they even existed until a few days ago."

"Still," Dean prodded. "Family's important. At the end of the day, it's all you've got."

"You're wrong," Alice argued. "Family can be lost. When it all comes down to it, all you have in this world is yourself."

"Sounds lonely," Dean said. "I don't think I could live like that."

"Live like what? For yourself?"

Dean felt a pang as her words struck a chord somewhere deep inside him.

"I guess not."

"We all need to learn how sooner or later, Dean," Alice told him. "Nothing lasts forever. Especially not family. Even if you don't live the way we do, people still change and grow. They drift apart. Go off to live their own lives. And eventually, they all die."

"So what are you saying, it's pointless to ever get close to anyone?"

"No. Just that... it shouldn't be all you have," Alice clarified. "I think if you're not living for yourself, you're not really living at all."

Dean chuckled to hide the impact what she said had on him.

"If you say so. Hey, tell me something; they play a lot of Dr. Phil reruns in hell?"

"Oh, you've got jokes," Alice said, rolling her eyes. "Ok, well we'll see how funny you think it is when-"

She cut off abruptly, turning her attention in the direction of the front door. Dean followed her lead, and heard the distinct, unmistakable clicking of a key in a lock.

They rose in sync, salt-shell loaded shotguns in hand, waiting.

They heard the door open, then close. A man hummed a tune that neither of them recognized. It sounded retro.

Suddenly, the humming stopped

"What the- Shit," came the man's voice.

Dean nodded, and he and Alice ducked around the bar, into the living room within full view of the door.

The man in the devil's trap crossed his arms over his chest in annoyance.

"Hunters. Just what I needed."

"Parsifal, right?" Dean greeted him. "We let ourselves in. Hope you don't mind."

"Uh-huh. Well, let's get on with it, shall we?"

He spread his arms.

"The sooner you exorcise me, the sooner I can start kissing ass to get myself back topside."

"Oh, if you think you want to be exorcised now, just wait til I get my mitts on you for ten minutes," Alice purred.

Parsifal frowned as she approached.

"Hey... hey, I know you," he said, pointing at her.

"Really? What, have we tangled before?" Alice asked. "You'll forgive me if I don't recognize you... I've sent a lot of demons packing in my time."

"No, not even close," Parsifal said with a laugh. "Wow, I never imagined we would cross paths again. Alice Smith. You look great!"

"Alice? What's this guys deal? Is he messing with you?" Dean asked.

Alice shrugged.

"Right, right, the meat suit," Parsifal said, looking himself over like he'd forgotten that the body he was inhabiting wasn't his. "You don't recognize me. I mean, it's all my fault. New face, fancy new name..."

"Get to the point," Alice snapped. "How do you know me?"

"Alice, it's me. Percy Fields," Parcifal said, gesturing to his chest. "From hell?"

Alice's jaw dropped.

"Perse?"

"Great to see you again," Parsifal grinned.

"Alice? Do you know him?" Dean demanded.

Alice struggled for words, pale as though she'd seen a ghost. This wasn't too far off from that.

"Yeah, I know him. I... I knew him in hell," she confessed.


	22. Vincula Inferni

"What does that mean?" Dean asked. "Knew him how?"

"You could say Alice and I were cell mates," Parsifal supplied.

"Hell has cells?" Dean frowned.

"Parts of it," Alice said with a shudder. "But those parts are reserved for people who were supposedly less evil than us. What Perse means by 'cell mates' is that we spent a lot of time getting our guts ripped out on neighboring racks."

"Alice, please, it's Parsifal now," he insisted. "I worked hard to earn my new name."

Alice narrowed her eyes at him.

"Oh, I see. They finally offered," she scowled.

Parsifal shrugged.

"I'd been there over three thousand years. To call it long overdue would be the understatement of several centuries."

He studied Alice closely.

"Don't tell me you're jealous," he scoffed.

"Well, it's an offer I hoped I would be given every day for almost a thousand years," Alice pointed out.

"What offer?" Dean demanded.

"Oh please, what you got was unspeakably better," Parsifal said, ignoring Dean. "You got out! You escaped that literal hellhole! You..."

He shook his finger at Alice with a smile that looked like it was being forced past a mouth full of glass shards.

"You felt that Devil's Gate opening, and you took off like a bat out of hell. You and all the actual hellbats and demons, and damned souls."

"I seem to remember your face in that crowd too," Alice said.

"Yeah, well... not all of us made it out before the gate slammed shut again," Parsifal sighed.

"Sorry about that."

Dean gave up on asking questions and listened instead.

"Don't be," Parsifal said. "All water under the bridge, right? After all, I wouldn't have known what to do with myself if I had made it out. I like what you've done, by the way. Shifter, right?"

"Yep."

"Hm. Binding spell?"

"Of course."

"Classy. And the reaper chasing you?"

"How do you know about that?"

"I've moved up three or four pay grades since the last time you saw me. You'd be surprised how much I know about the workings of damnation. So? What are you doing to keep him from dragging you back?"

"Well, the living host does a bit for it. I've got three hex bags on me at all times. Most importantly, I keep moving."

"Wow. What a life. Constantly on the move, constantly checking over your shoulder. Is it worth it?" Parsifal asked.

Alice laughed loudly.

"Is what worth it? Staying topside? Staying out of hell? That's a dumb question. You've been down there. What would you say?"

"Absolutely not," Parsifal replied immediately.

"What?! Perse, you are SO full of shit!" Alice yelled. "What, did your soul go black and you suddenly forgot the constant, never-ending torture? "

"I told you to call me Parsifal!" he snapped.

"Parsifal is a stupid name! I'm not calling you that," Alice sneered. "Did they fry your brain to a crisp down there? Is that why you chose such a dumb new name? Why you love hell so much now?"

"Firstly, my brain is fine. Secondly, I don't love hell. I just realize now that it was... a necessary evil."

"Necessary? What the hell for?" Alice demanded.

"The perpetuation of the natural order," Parsifal explained. "Life leads to death, death to afterlife, afterlife to ascension. Or descension, in some cases."

"What are you now, a demon or a some kind of gothic hippie?" Alice scoffed.

"I'm in on some of the biggest secrets of existence, is what I am," Parsifal claimed.

"Oh yeah? Care to share?"

Parsifal put a finger to his lips.

"Sorry, sister. Demons only. Tell you what though; Go back to hell and marinate for a few more centuries. Earn your stripes, and I'll put in a good word for you when the time comes for you to move up."

"Move up?" Dean demanded, unable to keep quiet any longer. This demon was playing Alice, baiting her. "You mean lose every scrap of humanity she has left and turn into some a smart-mouthed, black-eyed freak of nature like you?"

"Aw, come on," Parsifal laughed. "She barely had any 'humanity' to start out with, and she's already got quite the mouth on her. All that she's missing at this point are the eyes."

Parsifal turned back to Alice and gestured at Dean.

"Who is this guy anyway?" he asked.

"Another old friend," Alice said.

"Really? 'Cause it doesn't seem like he knows you very well," Parsifal said pointedly.

"Ok, that's enough," Dean scowled. "Alice, I don't know what the deal is with you and your demon friend, but this is a waste of time. We came here for an interrogation, not a class reunion."

"Right," Alice said, setting her expression into a cold mask. "Why don't you go clear the floor? I'll get started."

"Clear the floor?" Parsifal asked curiously.

"You know. So the neighbors don't hear the screams," Alice said with a shrug.

Parsifal grinned and began to laugh.

"Screams. You'd hurt me, Alice? After everything we've been through?"

"You know me pretty well," Alice pointed out ironically. "Why don't you tell me?"

She rolled up her sleeves and Parsifal eyed her Torxing marks.

"You're right. There's nothing in this world or beyond so precious to you that you wouldn't hurt it to get what you want. But you know me too, Alice. Do you really think you can get me to talk with torture?"

"Eventually."

"Alice..." Dean growled. "You wanna stop the foreplay and get this show on the road?"

She cleared her throat and began to recite.

"Wait!" Parsifal shouted. "Hold on just a minute now. I don't even know what you want to ask me yet. Maybe we can make a deal."

Alice looked at Dean and shrugged.

"If we can get this done with no screaming, we don't have to displace the neighbors," she pointed out.

"What is it you want?" Dean asked Parsifal.

"Well, it's hard to say right now, because I don't know what you want me to tell you," Parsifal replied. "You first."

"Ok."

Dean glanced furtively at Alice. This was it. She was going to know soon. All he could do was prepare. He had been trying to imagine what her reaction would be for days now, but it was hard.

He put the thoughts from his mind and focused on Parsifal.

"I want to know about crossroads deals. When someone sells their soul, who holds the contract?" Dean asked.

Parsifal was quiet for a few minutes.

"That's incredibly privileged information. What makes you think I know?"

"We have reliable intelligence saying you do," Alice said.

"Reliable intelligence? From where?"

"We don't disclose our sources," she said with a wink.

"Good to know."

Parsifal examined the lines of the Devil's trap on the ceiling above him.

"So, here's the thing," he mused aloud. "If I don't tell you'll, you're going to torture me ruthlessly."

Alice cracked her knuckles with a grin.

"If I do tell you, my superiors are gonna be _pissed._ Like, I guarantee that you cannot imagine the level of pure demonic rage that is going to come down on me if I spill that can of particularly expensive beans."

"And how are they going to know it was you that spilled?" Alice asked.

"Well like I said, it's high level information. There are only a handful of demons privy to it, and that I know of, there are only ten or so topside."

"Quite a dilemma," Alice admitted.

Dean scoffed.

"Right. You know what this is?" he asked, rubbing his thumb and pinkie finger together. "It's the world's smallest violin playing a sad song for you, buddy."

"Assume I did tell you. Then what?" Parsifal asked.

"Not your concern," Dean snapped.

"It's very much my concern!" Parsifal roared, turning wrathful on a dime. He pushed against the boundary of the Devil's Trap, clawing at the invisible barrier that separated him from Dean. "Very much indeed, sonny boy! If I give you a name, and you go after them guns blazing, as hunters are so wont to do, I can guarantee you that you'll be killed slowly and painfully!"

He took a step back and adjusted his tie, regaining his composure.

"You see, you'll be begging to sell them your mother's soul if they'll just kill you quickly. My name will be one of the first you give up. So, I'll ask again; what's your plan?"

"Right, so you can run and warn your superiors that we're coming? Tell them exactly what moves we're planning to make? How stupid do we look?" Dean demanded.

"Fairly stupid, really," Parsifal said. "This conversation is over. If you let me out of this trap, I'll kill you quickly. Alice, I'll see what I can do about getting you promoted fast. As for your friend... well, he can rot on the rack for all I care."

"Who, this guy?" Alice scoffed. "Please. Don't be fooled by the company he keeps. He's as righteous as they get."

Parsifal sniffed the air and raised an eyebrow. Dean's gut curled with foreboding.

"You sure? Because his soul has a pitch black seal stamped onto it," he said.

"A... what?" Alice asked, confused.

"Your friend here has a contract on his head, sweetie," Parsifal broke it down. "He's sold his soul. Didn't you know? Isn't that what you're here about?"

Alice turned slowly to look at Dean.

"That's incredibly interesting," she said. Dean tried to read her expression, but it was difficult. Maybe she hadn't fully processed what Parsifal said yet. Her features were completely blank. She looked like a realistic human robot with all it's factory settings intact. She nodded in the direction of the bedroom. "Dean, a quick word."

"Should we really leave him alone? I mean-"

"If he was going anywhere, he would have done it already," Alice cut him off. "Word. Now."

They walked away from Parsifal, Dean watching him out of the corner of his eye warily.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" Alice asked, still emotionless.

"Yeah. I, uh... I was hoping I wouldn't have to, but... well. If you're gonna interrogate the guy, I guess you should know what you're interrogating him about," Dean chuckled nervously.

"Yeah, interrogation usually works better that way," Alice snarked. "Dean, is what he said true?"

"Which part, the part about me selling my soul?"

"No, the other part I was confused about," Alice said sarcastically. "Yeah, the part about you selling your soul! Did you?"

Dean didn't answer her, but his silence was enough.

"Wow. Just... wow. What did you get in return?" Alice asked. "I don't see piles cash, or hordes of naked women, or mountains of pie. What the hell did you want bad enough to sign your soul away for?"

Dean opened his mouth to speak, but Alice stopped him.

"You know what? It's not important. We're on a job right now. This was a super unprofessional way to do this, ok Dean? Image is everything in an interrogation. Now we look like we're not on the same page. Like we keep secrets from each other. Do you have any idea how much harder it's gonna be to get him to talk now?"

As her words sunk in, Dean started to frown.

"So, let me get this straight; you're upset not because you just found out I'm going to hell, but because you think I made you seem unprofessional?!"

"Worse than unprofessional, Dean!" Alice snapped. "We look amateur! Jeez! Is there anything else I should know before we go back out there?"

Dean gaped at her speechlessly, and she shook her head at him in disappointment.

"Come on. Let's see if we can't salvage this wreck of a demon hunt. And how about we at least _try_ to present a united front, huh? If that's ok with you."

Dean lagged behind her as she made her way back to Parsifal. He didn't know what he expected from her, but it hadn't been this.

* * *

"That's... that's a hell of a info dump," Henricksen informed Sam. "I mean, literal hell. You're telling me that... that monsters and demons are real, and you and your brother aren't actually psychotic serial killers... you travel around the country fighting these things?"

"That's the gist of it, yeah," Sam sighed as he quickly laid another line of salt.

"That's the worst defense I've ever heard in my entire life," Henricksen said. "And I once had a con swear up and down that Santa Claus would corroborate his alibi if I wrote a him letter at the North Pole."

Henricksen's tone was completely numb. Sam guessed that he was in shock after everything that had happened. He didn't want to believe what he was being told, but was having a hard time finding another explanation for Ruby's telekinesis.

"Wait... That guy really was nuts, right?" Henricksen asked, dead serious. " Santa Claus isn't real, is he?"

"No, Santa Claus isn't real," Sam assured him.

Henricksen was quiet for a long time.

"Fighting evil with condiments," he finally said, tone heavy with disbelief. "So, does pepper do anything, or is it just salt?"

"Just salt. It's for purification," Sam explained.

"Right."

"Look, I know this is a lot to take in."

"That's the biggest understatement I've ever heard," Henricksen said pointedly. "In the last half hour, you and your blonde demon lady friend out there have managed to turn my world completely on it's head. That's seriously confusing, by the way. You hunt demons, but you work with them too?"

"Ruby's... a complicated case," Sam sighed. "The first time we met she saved my life. It seems like all she ever does is try to help Dean and me. I'm trying to give her a chance."

"Uh-huh. Speaking of, where is Dean?"

"He's on a demon hunt across the country."

"I don't suppose he'd drop what he's doing now and come pull our bacon out of this mess you've gotten us into."

"Me?! You're the one who had us chained up in there like sitting ducks!" Sam exclaimed. "I tried to tell you that was a bad idea! Hell, I seem to remember me and Dean both trying to explain what was really happening with us a long time ago!"

"Yeah, I haven't forgotten," Henricksen snapped. "Pardon me for not believing that your brother was framed for murder by a _shapeshifter_."

Sam set his jaw and swallowed his anger.

"You're right. You didn't know. You were just doing your job," he acknowledged.

"Hey, my advice?" Henricksen chuckled. "Next time you need to convince someone that the truth is out there, sic your demon friend on them for a hot second."

"I'll be sure to remember that."

"Seriously though, is there any backup on the way, or do we have to deal with this on our own?" Henricksen asked.

"The phones are all dead. It's just us in here."

"So what, your pet demon can toss people around like empty pop cans, but she can't get a message to your brother?"

"I'm pretty sure she can't do that," Sam assured him. "And she's not my pet."

"Oh, so you're the pet in this equation then?"

Sam ignored that comment as he and Henricksen headed back to the office. The remaining officers and the receptionist were holed up there with Ruby. All the officers posted outside the station were dead, as was the man they had sent out to bring them in.

"You know, you should really count yourself lucky that Dean isn't here," Sam pointed out, trying to be funny to keep the atmosphere light. "He'd sticking it to you pretty hard right about now."

"Yeah. Well, maybe I deserve to have it stuck to me," Henricksen said contemplatively. "I mean, I've been a federal agent for fifteen years, Winchester. Fifteen years! When I think of all the time I've spent chasing down supposed bad guys... and do you know how many I've actually put behind bars?"

Sam shrugged.

"Five. Six, maybe," Henricksen scoffed. "That's just the job. You bust your ass for months, years, waiting for the smallest break in the case, and when it's all said and done, maybe you save a few people... maybe.

"I used to think my job was so important. And all this time, there's been something so big off in the corner... I've been wasting my life."

"Don't beat yourself up," Sam said. "Just because monsters are real doesn't mean that there aren't still plenty of humans that need to be reined in."

"If you say so."

They walked into the reception area to find Ruby trying to instruct the two remaining deputies on how to load salt into shot gun shells. "I can't touch it, moron!" she berated one of them. "You need to do it!"

She raised her hand and Sam's eyes widened with alarm. He opened his mouth to yell at her, but rather than strike the deputy, she burrowed her fingers into her hair and twisted in frustration.

"How's it going in here?" Sam asked.

Ruby spun around to face him.

"Oh, peachy," she spat. "Have you looked outside recently?"

"I've been salting windows," Sam pointed out. "We're completely surrounded. There have to be at least thirty demons out there."

"Exactly. So, you're the master of improvisation," Ruby snarked. "How are we going to Houdini our was out of this one, Sam?"

"I don't know yet," Sam admitted.

"Right. I spend two hours living the Winchester way, and I'm practically dead meat!" Ruby hissed. "Your way sucks ass, Sam!"

"Yeah, you keep telling me that!" Sam exploded. "I got it! Being good is harder than being bad; _who knew?_ If you have such a problem with doing things the right way, why are you even here?!"

"To try to stop you from getting yourself killed!" Ruby yelled.

"That's nice, but I'd like to know why the hell you care so damn much! Why me?" Sam demanded.

Ruby's eyes darted around the room, and Sam took a look around as well. Henricksen, the deputies, and the receptionist, Nancy, were all watching them.

"Maybe we should take this to the hall," Ruby suggested.

Sam followed her, breathing deeply to calm himself as they walked away from the group.

"Get those shells loaded," Sam told Henricksen in passing.

Ruby closed the door on the officers, isolating herself with Sam.

"Well?" Sam prompted.

"Sam, you have to understand," Ruby began. Her tone had changed. She was plaintive now, placating, pleading even. "My motives... they aren't exactly simple."

"See if you can't break it down for me," Sam insisted, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Fine," she sighed. "A long time ago, when I was alive... when I was still human... I was from a big family. You could say we were hunters, but this was back when hunting was a legitimate business to be in. When people were still scared of demons and vampires and ghosts.

"My entire life, I was taught that there was this thick line between right and wrong... Good and evil with no gray area between them. I always did my best to be good, but... well, humans aren't perfect."

"Get to the point," Sam said sharply.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and summoned all her patience.

"I made a terrible mistake, Sam. I sold my soul for power, because I knew I could use that power to help people. And all I wanted was the chance to prove to my family that I could really have done it. Alice Smith took that chance away from me forever."

"That's nice, but what does it have to do with you caring whether I live or die?" Sam demanded.

"You're a lot like me, Sam," Ruby explained. "See, I know all about you. I know what happened to you when you were a baby. What Azazel did to you."

"How the hell did you-"

"It's not exactly a secret," Ruby pointed out. "Any demon worth their salt knows that there's a big move on the horizon, and that you were supposed to lead the charge. But you didn't!"

Ruby got passionate, startling Sam with her sincerity.

"You took a power that was given to you by demons, and you ran away with it! You proved them all wrong!"

She took a moment to compose herself, then went on.

"Look, all I want to do is give you the chance I never got. The chance to prove that the world isn't as black and white as everyone thinks. That the things they say are evil can be turned around for good in the right hands."

Sam believed her, and she could see that in his eyes.

"You're right," she sighed. "Your way, the good way... it's hard. Especially for me. I mean, I remember what it was like to be human, but that was so long ago... I got so used to hell, to being a demon... being the bad guy, I guess. It's going to take some adjusting for me to come back from that."

Sam nodded to show he understood.

"If you really mean all that... if you really want to do things the right way, prove that everything isn't black and white, I'll help," he told her. "But you have to _really_ try. I mean, really."

"I'm here, aren't I?" Ruby pointed out. "I didn't kill any of the feds."

"Yeah. You didn't kill any feds."

"One step at a time."

"Right."

There was a moment of silence between them.

"So," Ruby finally ventured, "According to the Winchester way, if there was a spell that could vaporize all the demons outside and all I needed for the ritual was a human heart..."

"No," Sam said firmly, frowning.

"Relax," Ruby rolled her eyes. "It was a joke. That spell would vaporize me too."

Sam scoffed.

"Let's go back and help them pack salt rounds. And maybe think of a real plan to get us out of here."

He opened the door and walked through, and Ruby followed him with a hidden smirk.

If only Sam could appreciate how thoroughly she had just played him.

* * *

Parsifal's screams were earsplitting as he writhed on the floor in a pool of his own blood. If Dean had drawn the devil's trap on the ground, it would have been washed away by now.

Alice closed her eyes and turned away, and Parsifal gasped for breath. Blood trickled slowly past her fingertips. Nowhere near the amount her victim had lost, but enough to draw Dean's attention.

"Hey, are you ok?" he asked under his breath. "There are other ways we can do this, you know."

"I'm fine," she panted dismissively. She rolled her sleeves up to reveal her Torx marks freshly opened and slowly weeping blood. "I'm just gonna take a minute to wrap these."

"Look, if this is hurting you too-"

"It's hurting him way more than me," Alice said pointedly. "If you want a round with him, have at it. Otherwise, give me a few more hours. He'll break eventually."

She stalked off to the bathroom, leaving Dean alone with Parsifal.

"What do you say?" Dean asked. "Had enough yet?"

"Oh buddy, I had enough the minute I walked in my door and found a hunter infestation in my apartment," Parsifal snapped.

"But not enough to talk."

"Ugh. I was having such a good day!" Parsifal yelled in frustration. "You know what I did today? I got a murderer off the hook. Put him right back on the streets where he belongs. On the courthouse steps, I patted him on the back, and I told him 'you're a free man, Alec. Don't waste your freedom. Use it to do what you love'."

Parsifal's words made sense of Alice's earlier question.

"Oh. So that's what a demon's doing playing lawyer in Cincinnati," Dean realized. "We had a couple theories. Thought it might have been a sex thing. You know. A little compensation, if you know what I mean."

"As if. I'm just doing my job. Wrecking the world, one disaster at a time," Parsifal grinned. "Life is one big test, my friend. Nothing here is permanent. It's all designed to determine what happens to you for eternity. My role is to make it as easy for humans to fail that test as I can."

"And by fail you mean end up in hell," Dean clarified.

"Now you're getting it. Dean, wasn't it?"

Dean didn't respond.

"Dean Winchester, by any chance?"

"Alice must have mentioned me," Dean guessed.

"Mmm... no, not that I can recall," Parsifal replied.

"Really?" Dean asked, surprised. "A thousand years, and she didn't bring me up once?"

"Not that I can remember, but those were trying times," Parsifal shrugged.

"Well how do you know me then?"

"I've heard about you in other circles. They do say you're a righteous man. If you don't mind my asking, what the hell are you doing hanging around with Alice Smith?"

"I'm the one asking the question here," Dean reminded him. "What circles?"

"Demonic ones."

"What do they say?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Parsifal smirked. "Tell you what. Wait a few more weeks. You can eavesdrop for yourself once they drag you down to the pit."

Dean chuckled along for a few seconds, then hurled holy water at the demon. It hissed and cringed away.

"I'm not getting dragged anywhere," Dean snarled.

"We'll see about that," Alice said, coming back with scraps of the grey shower curtain tied around her forearms. To Dean's surprise, she tossed extra scraps to Parsifal.

"How you holding up Perse?" she asked.

All Dean could do was frown.

Parsifal sighed as he pressed the scraps to his arms.

"Guess," he replied sarcastically.

"Look, I can keep this up for as long as it takes," Alice pointed out. "Or we can make a deal."

"There's no deal we can make that doesn't leave me screwed up the ass with a red hot poker for the rest of eternity," Parsifal groaned.

"You sure about that?" Alice asked.

"Yeah, fairly sure."

"Because I've been thinking your dilemma through," Alice went on. "Seems to me you could be off the hook with a little misdirection."

"I don't follow."

"Well, you said yourself that you're not the only demon on Earth right now who's privy to the information we're after. Here's my pitch; You snitch, we set you loose. No exorcism, I'm talking about breaking the devil's trap and letting you walk."

"What?!" Dean demanded.

"Dean! Let me work!" Alice snapped. "So, how's that sound Perse? If we don't send you packing your superiors ought to have a tough time telling it was you that ratted."

"That does sound better than carrying on as we have been," Parsifal admitted. "Still risky though."

"Look Perse, you're in the shit now," Alice pointed out. "The only way out is through. The road ahead is full of nothing but crappy options. It's on you to pick the least crappy one and run with it."

Parsifal's expression said she had a valid point.

"So?" she nudged. "What's it gonna be pal?"

"Fine," he sighed after a long pause. "It's all crap, but what the hell."

Dean put a hand on Alice's shoulder and and pulled her aside.

"You're just playing this guy, right?" he asked under his breath. "You're not serious about letting him go?"

"Of course I'm serious," Alice shot back.

"This guy is a demon!" Dean hissed.

"You don't say!"

"You can't just set him loose! He's out here helping murderers walk free, Alice, we can't just-"

"This isn't about him anymore!" Alice yelled, loud enough for Parsifal to hear. "Screw what he is, screw what he does! This is about YOU now! Do you understand?!"

Dean went silent. This was closer to the reaction he had braced himself for from her.

"Do you have _any_ idea," Alice hissed, getting in his face, "What you've gotten yourself into?! You don't! Because if you had any CLUE what you were signing up for, you would NEVER have gone through with it!"

She poked him hard in the chest.

"You think it's such a terrible thing to let one little piss-ant demon off the hook? Wait til you've spent five minutes in hell, smartass! You'll be begging to be just like him! You'll be begging for anything to make it stop!"

"I would never!" Dean growled back. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about! You don't know anything about me!"

Alice started to snap back, but bit her tongue. She considered him through narrowed eyes for a long moment. Finally, she scoffed.

"You know what? You're right. I don't know that much about you. It's your funeral. If you're too damn self-righteous to do what it takes to save yourself, that's not my problem. Exorcise the bastard, see if I care!"

She stalked off behind Parsifal's bar and poured herself a drink.

"Perse, you want something?" she called.

"Yeah, why not," he sighed. "I'm about to catch the express train back to hell. May as well live up the few minutes I have left. Bring the Remy Martin."

"I drank the Remy Martin," Alice replied. "Pick again."

"Ugh. Just bring me a good whiskey."

"You've got at least four in here, and I don't recognize the names!"

"They're all good! For Satan's sake woman, just bring me something that'll get me drunk!" Parsifal cried in frustration.

Grumbling, Alice re-entered the hall with two bottles of whiskey. She tossed one to Parsifal, and sipped one herself.

"Well?" she asked Dean. "You gonna exorcise the demon or not, Mr. Goody Two-Shoes?"

"What happened 'he can't hold out forever'?" Dean demanded.

"Well, turns out I burned out before he did," Alice said. She sat on Parsifal's sofa and kicked her feet up on his coffee table. "This is between you two now."

"Fine!" Dean snapped. "I don't need you to get a demon to talk."

"Ok then hotshot, let's see what you've got," Alice taunted.

Seething, Dean splashed Parsifal with holy water. The demon choked on his whisky and fell back as water steamed and sizzled on his skin.

"The demon that holds my contract," Dean reminded him. "Give me a name!"

Alice rolled her eyes while Parsifal eyed the two of them warily.

"Oh please," she scoffed. "He just withstood an hour of Torxing and you think a little holy water's gonna get him talking?"

"Alice, look, I'm not trying to get caught up in some twisted lover's quarrel," Parsifal whined. "You had a really good idea! Can't I just tell you what I know and be on my way?!"

"I don't know, Perse," Alice mused sarcastically. "How 'bout it Dean? You want to turn this into a win-win scenario? Or would you rather hold onto your precious little morals and spend eternity rotting in hell with the likes of him?"

"It's not either or!" Dean barked. He emptied the water bottle onto Parsifal, who shrieked and twisted, trying to escape. "He's going to talk! Then I'm sending him back to hell where he belongs!"

Dean knelt down to paw through his duffel bag, searching for a rosary. He was going to need a lot more holy water.

Alice chugged the rest of her whiskey and examined the empty bottle. She stood and sauntered up behind Dean.

"Try the side pocket," she suggested from above him.

"Help or don't, Alice," Dean snapped. "Make up your mind."

"Oh, my mind's made up," Alice assured him.

She smashed the whiskey bottle over his head with brutal, decisive force and he collapsed atop the duffel bag without a sound.

Dean didn't have the guts to do what needed to be done. He couldn't save himself. Alice was going to have to do it for him.

"You'll thank me later," she told his unconscious figure.

Parsifal watched with raised eyebrows.

"You two have a complicated relationship, huh?" he observed.

"It's starting to seem that way," Alice sighed. "So. Let's make a deal, old friend."

Parsifal grinned wickedly.

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Ruby said, frowning heavily at Sam and Henricksen. "The best plan you knuckleheads can come up with is basically to lock me in a closet?"

"Is that seriously the only part you paid attention to?" Sam demanded.

"Well the other parts just sounded like 'suicide, suicide, blah-blah, more suicide'," Ruby joked darkly.

"It's the best chance we have," Sam said grimly. "Let the horde in, trap them, and perform a mass exorcism. Since you're not fond of exorcisms, yeah, your job is to sit in the supply closet with earbuds in while we do the rest."

"Your plan is terrible," Ruby told him. "There's no way in hell it's going to work. You know what's gonna happen? You're gonna let those demons in and they're going to gut you. Then they're going to find me, hand me off to their boss for cavorting with the enemy, and boil me in tar for the next five hundred years."

"Do you have a better idea?" Henricksen asked.

Ruby was quiet for a long time.

"No," she finally admitted. "No matter what happens, I'm afraid we're all going to die tonight."

"So let's at least go out swinging," Sam said.

"That is _so_ not my style," Ruby groaned.

"Well, it's right on brand for me," Sam said cheerfully.

"I'm not really with the whole 'go out in a blaze of glory' shtick either," Henricksen put in. "Personally, I feel like having you on the sidelines is a huge waste of a telekinetic ace-in-the-hole. Sam here says that the exorcism won't actually hurt you. Why not ditch the closet and fight with us?"

"Oh the exorcism'll hurt plenty," Ruby assured him. "I just won't be able to smoke out like all the others. Still, you've got a point. I don't think I can sit this one out. No offense Sam, but I'd rather put my life in the hands of an autistic toddler than yours."

She pulled her knife from it's sheath and inspected the tip.

"So. The Devil's in the details. Get me up to speed."


	23. Thin Black Lines

The plan that Sam and Henricksen concocted was simple and straightforward. After Ruby suggested a few tweaks, it was even somewhat elegant. The danger was all in the execution. One misstep by anyone would be fatal for the person who made it, though not necessarily disastrous for the group.

Henricksen and Sam each had a door to open. They salted a route from there to the reception area, the largest open space in the station. The idea was to essentially corral the demons in. At the center of the room, Sam painted the floor with a large version of the anti-possession symbol he had tattooed on his chest. They used Ruby to test it; it served as a reverse Devil's trap. A barrier that demons couldn't enter and which was significantly harder to displace than a line of salt.

Ruby took the two deputies and Nancy the receptionist to the roof. They split up and laid in wait, Nancy and Ruby near the front entrance, the two deputies near the back. Each pair was equipped with salt loaded shot guns and loose salt.

"Bet you my knife the redshirt deputies and Jane the Virgin here don't make it out of this alive," Ruby quipped before they moved out.

Sam shot her a dirty look.

"What?! Is black humor not allowed these days?" Ruby demanded.

"Take care of those people," Sam told her seriously. "Consider it homework."

"Yes sensei," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "Let's get this over with. If I'm gonna die, I'd really like to get on with it. I feel like I've been locked in this station for two weeks."

She moved out with Nancy and the deputies, leaving Sam and Henricksen to their tasks. They had the most dangerous jobs. They were the bait, and if all went according to plan, they would be locked in the station with two or three dozen pissed off demons.

"You set the tape up?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. We have exactly ten minutes to get all these fish crammed into our barrel," Henricksen replied.

Sam nodded in approval.

"Look, for what it's worth, you're handling this situation really well," he said.

"Finally, a good use for all that training I had to go through to become a federal agent," Henricksen replied dryly. "I guess this is a regular Saturday night for you."

"Nah, this is pretty wild, even for me," Sam admitted. "See you in ten?"

"You better."

They went their separate ways, Sam heading to the front doors. Through the glass, he could see the crowd of demons waiting, unnaturally still and silent.

Sam unchained the doors and threw them open. He swiped his foot through the line of salt that was the last barrier between him and the horde. Quickly, he backed into the station, staying just within sight of the demons outside.

For a long moment, Sam held his breath, and it seemed like the demons were holding theirs as well. They must have known there was a trap, he thought, heart pounding frantically against his ribs. Or maybe they assumed that their cornered prey had no option but a desperate last stand.

Finally, one of the demons rushed Sam with a snarl. He blasted it with rock salt the minute it was inside the station, falling back as the others charged forward as well. He aimed his first few rounds at the demons closest to him, but there were too many and soon, he was jogging backwards and firing randomly into the crowd. He thought he heard the doors slam shut again, but was too far away now to see. Hopefully, Ruby and Nancy were salting the entrance behind the demons, preventing them from leaving the station.

Sam dropped the shotgun and dashed madly for the center of the sigil painted on the floor. He made it with demons shrieking and grasping after him, stopping short like mimes at the edge of the symbol. Terrifying mimes that pushed and raged at the invisible barrier separating them from Sam. They couldn't touch him from there, but they were still close enough for him to smell their hosts' breath.

With a sinking feeling, he realized that the safe little island they had painted was completely surrounded. There was no way Henricksen would be able join him.

Demons snarled and hissed and writhed only feet from him, crawling over one another in a frenzy. Sam swallowed hard. He was able to make out a few threats through the jumbled noise. They were graphic and vehement, even considering the nature of the beings issuing them.

He nervously eyed the thin black lines that kept them from making good on their gory promises. He would have been unsettled behind a barbed wire topped concrete wall, never mind a barrier that would fail if God forbid one of these bloodthirsty black-eyes thought to scratch away an inch of just barely dried paint from the linoleum. He forced himself to look anywhere but at the sigil. He didn't want the demons to follow his gaze and get ideas. A glance at his watch told him he only had to keep them at bay for two more minutes. Each second passed slowly as would a human would in it's place. They went as if they too feared death, as if they were also filled with uncertainty and apprehension about what awaited them beyond the space they were assigned in this existence, the space with which they were familiar.

"Enough!"

The voice that boomed out over the snarling, spitting demonic frenzy was twisted in it's own right. Another demon, powerful enough to warp the voice of the man whose body it had stolen. The demons fell silent and still around Sam's five foot diameter sanctuary. One by one, they stood aside, parting like water around the blade of a knife. What they revealed filled Sam with sinking dread.

A disheveled demon stepped forward, wearing a man in a suit that had taken a beating. The shirt was half untucked and the pants were ripped at the knees. He had his hand on the back on Henricksen's neck, pushing him forward for Sam to see.

"Winchester. It's over," the demon announced. "End this now, or this man will pay the price for your stubbornness."

"He's got nothing to do with this," Sam said. He desperately needed to stall. "Let him go, and I'll come out."

The demon chuckled, eyeing the paint surrounding Sam.

"Come out of there, you mean? That's a neat trick, hunter, I'll give you that. Inventive use of a powerful ward."

To Sam's surprise, the demon shoved Henricksen into the circle. Henricksen looked just as confused as Sam.

"It would take a powerful demon to break such a sigil," it went on, cracking it's hosts knuckles with a grin. "Guess it's a good thing this horde has someone like me slumming with them."

He held out his hand, and a demon handed him a pocket knife. He flicked it open while Sam frantically counted down seconds in his head. The demon stepped forward, reared back and raised the blade high into the air. With a shout, he drove it down with all his might, burying the knife up to the hilt in the floor. The ward broke with a crack like thunder, and Sam and Henricksen were hurled back by the force. They slammed into the far wall, groaning as the demons closed in around them.

"Now, the million dollar question," the demon who had captured Henricksen pondered, sauntering up to the front of the crowd. He grabbed Sam by the back of his shirt and hauled him to his feet. "Would Lilith be pleased if I saved her the trouble of gutting you? Or are you big enough fish that she would prefer to do it herself?"

Behind Sam, Henricksen slowly rose to his feet, wincing from his hard impact with the drywall. He watched the clock on other wall anxiously. Sam had lost count of the seconds. It was less than forty. They were cutting things a lot closer planned, but all he had to do was keep this demon talking for a little while longer.

"Call it stalling, but I'd really prefer to hear from Lilith herself about that," Sam grunted, straightening in the demon's grasp. It threw it's head back and laughed at him.

"Ah, the bliss of ignorance," it chuckled. "As painful as what I'm about to do to you is, you should still thank me. I'm powerful and sadistic, but I'm nothing compared to Lilith."

"A humble demon. That's a new one."

"There's a difference between humility and knowing your betters," the demon explained. "And when you're dealing with a better of Lilith's caliber, a prideful slip of the tongue can cost you... well, your tongue."

"Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world," Sam pointed out. "If you were mute, you wouldn't be in so much trouble right about now."

The demon frowned in confusion.

"What are you talking-"

He cut off abruptly as the loudspeaker system in the station squealed out an prerecorded 'announcement'.

" _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus."_

"No!" the demon howled. It released Sam and covered it's ears as the exorcism went on, Sam's voice ringing out loud, clear, and unstoppable over the crowd. Sam shrank back against the wall next to Henricksen as the demons went wild, shrieking and dashing madly for the exits in a futile attempt to escape.

" _Ergo draco maladicte et omnis legio diabolica,"_ Sam's voice continued. Demons crawled the walls and crashed into one another, shaking doors and throwing themselves against windows only to be hurled back by the lines of salt that trapped them. It was total chaos.

In the midst of it all, Sam locked eyes with the demon that had broken the protective sigil.

"This... will never... be over!" the demon snarled, dropping to it's knees from the effort required to cling to it's host. All around, it's comrades were beginning to leak away, black smoke drifting up to swirl in an angry cloud.

"Don't be so sure!" Sam shot back triumphantly. "Next time you see Lilith, tell her I'm waiting for her. Tell her I'm ready. I'm not going down without a fight."

The demon sneered defiantly, but before it could say another word, the exorcism reached it's peak and forced it from the body it inhabited. Furiously, it joined it's brethren at the ceiling, erupting into flames. Sam and Henricksen covered their heads and cringed away from the heat as the demons were sucked down into hell with a noise like reality tearing at the seams. With a final _whooosh_ , the floor regained it's shape. The lights came on in the station, pale florescence illuminating the living and the dead who were now free of demonic influence.

Sam and Henricksen surveyed the scene in silence. Henricksen seemed stunned, while Sam was filled with foreboding. Sure, this was an incredible victory. The odds they had just beat had been unbelievably bad.

As bad as it had been though, Sam got the feeling that it was just the beginning.

* * *

Dean came back to the world of the waking slowly. Through hazy visions that were less coherent than hallucinations and more concrete than dreams, a throbbing headache called him back to consciousness. He opened his eyes slowly, groaning at the hazy white field he saw before him. It took a few seconds for him to focus his gaze and identify it as the ceiling.

His senses returned to him one by one, slowly as hesitant children leaving their play to come home for dinner. Dean felt a soft mattress beneath him, heard a television playing and smelled tequila.

He was in Parsifal's bedroom. Alice sat up on the bed beside him, legs crossed at the ankles and a bottle in hand. Her eyes drifted from the TV to Dean, drawn by his stirring. She quickly directed them away from him and pointed blindly.

"Advil," she said shortly. "For the concussion."

Dean's aching eyes followed the path drawn by her finger and saw painkillers and water on the nightstand. With a frown and a groan, he sat up to take some.

"You mind telling me why I have a concussion in the first place?" he grumbled, downing eight of the tiny round pills.

Alice changed channels and offered him her tequila.

"I was just trying to help," she said. Neither her words nor her tone carried any hint of an apology.

"I didn't ask for your help," Dean pointed out. He was in too much pain to sound as angry as he felt, so he took the offered bottle and swigged from it in the hopes that it would help dull the pounding in his skull.

"You most certainly did not," Alice agreed. She finally looked him in the eyes. Her expression was cold and distant, but there was something in her eyes that told Dean her stoicism was carefully crafted to hide her true feelings. "You want to tell me why that is?"

"It's complicated," Dean replied.

"I've got time," Alice shot back. "Do you?"

"Where's Parsifal?" Dean deflected.

"Long gone."

"Damn it, Alice-"

"Save it."

She turned her gaze back to the TV, flicking through channels more quickly.

"He told me everything he knew before I let him go," she said. "Who holds your contract, why you have a contract in the first place, how long you have left... I know everything now, Dean."

"So you know I didn't have a choice."

Alice fixed him with a sidelong glance that was harshly judgmental.

"Did you really not though?" she asked pointedly.

"I couldn't just let my brother die!" Dean exclaimed.

"Why not?" Alice demanded. "People die Dean! That's what they do. ALL of them. What makes Sam friggin' Winchester so special?"

"He's the only damn family I have, that's what!"

"Well whose fault is that?! If it's family you want so badly, quit the life and go have one! You can't just hold onto the people you have right now so tightly you have to sell your soul to keep them alive! You have to let go!"

"Oh that's rich, coming from you!" Dean spat.

"Don't you dare!" Alice hissed, rising to her feet. The lights in the room flickered, but neither of them noticed.

"Seriously, you of all people are gonna stand there and tell me I need to let go?!" Dean pressed, advancing on her. "You're the damn poster child for obsessively clinging to your family! Remind me how many years you spent chasing Ruby around the country for revenge?!"

"You think that's what I wanted to do with my life?!" Alice shouted back. "I HAD NO GOD DAMNED CHOICE!"

The room was cold enough now to make Dean shiver, but he was too incensed to care.

"So you didn't, but I did?!" he demanded. He was in her face now, enraged by her hypocrisy.

"YES!"

"THAT'S BULLSHIT!"

" **NO!** "

Alice fought the urge to hit him, balling her hands into fists at her sides. Bringing her family into this was a dick move of the highest magnitude, and she couldn't believe he had gone there. She was out of breath from yelling and her anger was pushing her toward an emotional precipice that she hadn't gone over in a very long time.

"No," she said again, forcing her voice down. It still shook with the force of the emotions threatening to explode from her. "You're wrong! I _literally_ didn't have a choice, Dean! I promised I would kill that demon! I _promised_ I would save my sister! I swore I would find a way, and-"

She sobbed raggedly, shocking Dean. He watched her melt from fury to grief in an instant. The swirling colors in her eyes were blurred by tears that didn't fall, but collected and turned her irises into a multi-colored ocean.

"I still haven't!" Alice choked. She turned her back to him, wiping her eyes angrily. "I still have to keep all- all those promises! Somehow, someday, I still have to find a way to kill Ruby. I still have to take care of Allison. The only way for me to stay sane is to keep telling myself I'll find a way tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. Maybe I'll cross paths with them again. Maybe they're both already dead, maybe... maybe..."

Dean realized he had never seen Alice cry before. As she turned back to face him, tears still welling that she refused to let fall, he was filled with shame.

"I would give anything to be able to let her go," Alice told him. Her words were soft and sad, almost whispered. She looked drained, as if she'd burned through every emotion she was capable of feeling in the span of a few minutes. "If my soul wasn't already worthless, I'd sell it to... to lift this damn curse I have, weighing me down like an anchor every day of my damn life. There's nothing in this whole god-forsaken world I want more than to be able to move on."

Dean didn't know how to respond. He reached out in an attempt to comfort her, but she swatted his arms away like they offended her.

"Actually, I take that back," Alice shuddered. She sat on the edge of the bed as the lighting in the room returned to normal. "I'd live like this forever before I willingly went back to Hell."

She sniffled a little and pulled up a corner of Parsifal's sheet to dry her eyes with. She was embarrassed by her breakdown and just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible

"Sam's a really good person," she said. "He was definitely in a better place. It's all just such a waste, you know?"

Dean wasn't sure that he did, but he had lost the desire to fight her. He was still mad at her for knocking him out and letting Parsifal go, but even that anger didn't sit right with him. In her own way, Alice had been trying to help. He disagreed with her methods, but was grateful for her intentions.

"Look, I'm sorry, " he began, tentatively taking a seat on the bed at her side.

"You should be," she cut in sharply. "That was a low blow."

"It was. Sorry. I never knew that was how you felt about it."

It had honestly never occurred to Dean that Alice's reasons ran any deeper than a thirst for revenge, despite knowing that her unbreakable promises played a role. He had been in her shoes before, hunting Azazel for tearing his family apart. He just assumed she was like him.

"I, uh... I guess I don't know you as well as I thought," he realized aloud.

"Ditto," Alice sighed. "I thought you were a pretty smart guy. Too cool for school sort... never pegged you as the mopey self-sacrificing can't-live-without type."

"I mean, I'm not..."

She tried to shoot him a look that oozed sarcasm, but the tears ruined the effect.

"Stop that," Dean told her. This was a side of Alice he hadn't seen before, and he didn't like it. He liked it even less that he was the one that had brought it out. He reached out tentatively, a little relieved when she allowed him to pat her shoulder.

"Ok, fine," he admitted. "I've got some issues. I don't know if that's one of them, but... look, I just..."

"You don't need to make me understand," Alice sighed. "I do. I think what you did was dumb, but I get why you did it. You're not the first dumbass to hock their soul because they couldn't imagine their life without someone important."

Her words still had a harsh edge, but she leaned against him anyway.

"So, your bright idea is to try to kill the demon holding your deal."

"Parsifal tell you that?" Dean asked, rubbing her arm awkwardly. He wanted to comfort her, but he wasn't sure how. She didn't seem like she wanted to be comforted. Not by him, at any rate.

"He didn't have to. We're here getting their name, Sam's on the other side of the country getting that gun... not hard to put the two together."

"So, did you actually get the name?"

She straightened, pulling away from him.

"Yes. But I'm not sure it matters. I don't know what killing this demon will do, if anything. It's just as likely to bind you more strongly to your deal as it is to set you free."

"I don't know about that, it's already a pretty strong-"

"It's not irreversible at this point," Alice cut him off. "If you wanted, you could go to this demon and call the deal off. Give Sam back, get your soul back. Spare me the speech about how you never would, I'm just saying... after she's dead, there's no telling what could happen."

"She?"

Alice rolled her eyes, wiping them again on the sheet to dry the last of the tears that pooled there. He wasn't going to listen to anything she said. Time to stop wasting valuable breath.

"Lilith. That's the name Perse gave me."

"Is that all he gave you?"

"No. He told me everything he knew about her."

"Feel like sharing?"

"Well, she's powerful. The way he tells it, she's organizing every demon she can find into an army. He didn't tell me what for."

"You had him by the short and curlies. You found out that there's a demon army, but couldn't get him to tell you about the war they're gearing up to fight in?"

"I was picking my battles," Alice groaned. "Cut me some damn slack. Perse and me go back a long time."

"That's another thing I meant to ask you. You and your demon friend there, you uh..."

Alice's eyebrows shot up.

"Uh...?" she prompted.

"Well. You know."

Dean couldn't think of a tactful way to say it so he just spit it out.

"Was he like... your flame? When you two were... down there."

"Are you asking if we hooked up in hell?" Alice asked for clarification.

"Well did you? I mean, not that it's my business."

"We didn't," Alice frowned.

"Look, I didn't mean it like that," Dean amended quickly. "I'm not the jealous type. Just curious."

"That's good to know, but if anyone had the time or privacy to get down and dirty in hell, the place wouldn't be half as bad as it is," Alice scoffed.

"Fair point. But assuming you two met outside hell..."

"Dean..."

"I'm just saying, I saw the way you were together. There's some real chemistry there."

"Ehhh... no."

"If you say so,

Alice shot him a glare to curdle fresh cream. Her eyes were still red, but they were dry now and the vulnerability had vanished from them along with the overwhelming sorrow Dean had glimpsed for just a moment. Alice's armor had cracked ever so slightly, but the seam was sealed again. She was locked up tight as an oyster.

Dean sympathized. It was easiest to keep your pain in a box, in a drawer in a locked room. Opening all those layers was an ugly thing to be forced to do. He would have lashed out in her shoes too. He was torn between telling her he understood, and leaving the subject alone.

"We haven't heard from Sam since yesterday," Alice said, moving on as quickly as possible. Dean took it as a sign that she was happier leaving the topic unexplored. "Now that you're away again, we should head back to motel. Pack up, meet up with him as soon as we can."

"So you'll help me?" Dean asked. "You know. Stay out of hell."

"What do you think l've been doing since I found out?" Alice demanded, exasperated. "Torture is fun, but honestly it gets old after the first hour."

Dean took that as a yes.

* * *

Sam and Henricksen left the station before any of the possession survivors woke up. Ruby, Nancy and the deputies were waiting for them outside.

"What happened in there?" Ruby asked. "Did it all go off without a hitch?"

"Nothing ever goes off without a hitch in this line of work," Sam scoffed. "It went as well as could be expected."

"Are you kidding?" Ruby demanded. "We're all still alive! It went absolutely amazing!"

"Feels good to be the good guy, huh?" Sam chuckled.

"Damn straight."

Ruby nodded to the Nancy and the deputies.

"What about my homework? A-plus job, right? Not a hair out of place on their pretty little heads."

"Of course not, just a life time's worth of therapy bills ahead," Sam rebutted. "I guess you owe me one demon-killing knife."

"Whoa there, tiger, you want one, make your own," Ruby said, rolling her eyes. "Speaking of demon-killing weapons, we need to get a move on if we're going to catch up to your colt thief. The longer that hair is off Talbot's head, the less accurate the spell is going to be. Assuming she left any behind at all. After this mess, I'm starting to think she's more competent than I was giving her credit for."

Henricksen approached them as Nancy and the deputies hurried into the station, presumable to tend to the wounded.

"If your magic demon powers can't cut it, I can call in a few favors," he put in.

"It's nice of you to offer, but I think we've got it from here," Sam assured him. "Bela Talbot flies way below the radar. I doubt the FBI could find her."

"Suit yourself. You know where to find me if you ever need me," Henricksen said.

"Sure thing."

Sam and Ruby walked away, leaving Henricksen to clean up the colossal mess left in the wake of their passage through the town. Sam was quiet, deep in thought as they walked to the lot where their vehicle had been impounded. Ruby noticed.

"What's on your mind?" she asked.

"A lot. This changes everything."

"How? I told you weeks ago that Lilith was gunning for you."

"Lilith isn't really the problem. Well, I mean, she is. She's a pretty big problem, but... I don't know. Everything's so complicated now. I don't know what I should do next."

"Don't ask me. I've never been able to figure out what your priorities are."

Sam was silent again for a long time, thinking hard. He was seriously considering telling Ruby the whole truth, but it was impossible for him to predict what would happen if he did. He was convinced that Ruby was trying to get back on the straight and narrow, but how far was she willing to go to redeem herself?

He decided to come straight out with it and ask her.

"Ruby, what would you be willing to do to prove to me that you really want what you say you want?"

"What, I didn't do enough tonight?" Ruby asked in disbelief.

"Tonight was a great start, but it was one night," Sam pointed out. "Holding back from killing a few feds doesn't really prove very much."

"If not that, what then?" Ruby demanded. "Is there anything I _can_ do or say that would be enough for you?"

"I think so."

"Well you mind telling me what it is? I'm _so_ sick and tired of proving myself to you."

"It's not just about me. If you're really going to help me, I need Dean on board with working with you. And... he's not the only one."

"Hunters," Ruby sighed. "Well? What is this magic good deed that'll clear my name once and for all?"

"It's a big ask," Sam warned her.

"Right, and I've never been willing to do anything big for you," Ruby sneered. "Out with it, Winchester."

Sam hesitated, taking a final deep breath. He hoped he was making the right decision. If he had misjudged Ruby, the consequences could be disastrous.

"What if I asked you to forgive someone. Someone that you _really_ hate. I mean, despise."

"Forgiveness isn't my strong suit," she admitted. "I'm more of the eye-for-an-eye type. Recompense rights all wrongs."

"Ok. Great. What if you were already even with this person?" Sam prompted cautiously.

"Even how?"

"You know. They took your eye, you took theirs."

"I'm still short an eye. I'm still pissed and my depth perception is still shot. Are we going to toss metaphors around all night, or are you going to get to the damn point?"

"Fine. Ok. What if... I asked you to forgive Alice Smith?"

Confusion twisted Ruby's features.

"Alice? I don't know if you ever got the memo, Winchester, but Alice has been dead for years."

"I know. You killed her, right?"

"Yeah, so what does it matter if-"

Ruby fell silent, dread realization creeping over her features.

"If... if... unless..."

"Could you do it?" Sam prompted. "Could you let her off the hook if I asked you to?"

"Alice Smith was my greatest enemy," Ruby spat vehemently. "What she did to me.. the things I suffered through because of her... I wouldn't even be what I am today if she wouldn't have-"

"Well what about what you did to her?" Sam demanded. "She killed you, I get it. You killed her! That makes you even."

Ruby laughed scornfully.

"There's no such thing as even when you're dealing with wrongs of this magnitude. She sent me to hell before I could save myself from it!"

"And she went to hell after you killed her! You're even!" Sam insisted. "The question is, can you admit that? You claim you remember what it's like to be human, that you want to prove that just because you're a demon you don't necessarily have to be evil!"

"There's nothing more human than vengeance!" Ruby snarled.

"Forgiveness," Sam offered. "That's more human than revenge. The only question is, can you still do it? Or are you too far gone? Your choice, Ruby. Demon or human. You're the one out to prove that the line between them is thinner than everyone thinks. So what's it gonna be?"

Ruby glared at him, and he stared her down. Neither blinked. Neither wavered.

Finally, Sam scoffed and turned away.

"I should have known."

Ruby watched him go for a moment, torn.

"Sam!" she called, voice cracking. "Wait."

He paused, and she hurried after him.

"Why are you asking me for this?" she demanded. "Alice is dead. My forgiveness won't do her any good now."

"It's the thought that counts," Sam said snidely.

Ruby laughed at him, high and piercing in the cold black night.

"Ok, Winchester. Ok. I'll forgive Alice, if you can tell me that you honestly think Alice Smith deserves anyone's forgiveness."

"Everyone deserves forgiveness," Sam said automatically. Ruby raised one cynical eyebrow at him.

"If you say so," she said.

Sam considered everything he knew about Alice. With a sinking feeling, he realized he had lied. Truly, Alice Smith was the last person on the planet who deserved to be forgiven.


	24. By Any Other Name

Ruby knew better than to assume that Sam was posing her a hypothetical scenario when he asked her to forgive Alice. The seed of suspicion had been planted in Phoenix by the mysterious black-clad hunter whose face Ruby never glimpsed. It had been watered by Sam's desperate attempts to keep her at arms length from their little trio, and now it blossomed under the light of his foolhardy desire to believe that she was what she claimed. Now, there was no doubt left in her mind.

Alice Smith was back from the dead.

Ruby parted ways with Sam that night without asking him any more questions. There would be time for that later, though she itched to know. What was her sworn enemy doing these days? What was she? How had she managed to make her way back onto this mortal coil?

Was it possible, Ruby wondered to herself, that Alice had gone from human to demon so quickly? She supposed it wasn't out of the question. By nature, Alice was fairly twisted, as humans went. Had she completed a transition in ten years that Ruby had taken one hundred to undergo?

Even for someone like Alice, that was a hell of a stretch. Alice must have found another way to escape hell. Maybe Dean had made a deal to get her back? Ruby might have assumed so, if Dean's soul wasn't already bought and paid for with Sam's life. Someone else perhaps? But who could possibly care enough for Alice to undergo such an ordeal to return her to the land of the living?

There were only so many ways someone could come back to life, and even fewer that didn't involve demonic intervention. Ruby caught herself chewing the inside of her lip as she mulled the problem over and over. From the depths of the mind that she occupied, that she had all but forgotten did not belong to her, came a voice that she had not heard in years.

_You never did give her enough credit. She's clever as clever as she is ruthless, my sister._

"Allison," Ruby said aloud with her host's lips. "I almost forgot you were there."

Ruby had broken her years ago when she killed Alice. It had been a sweet victory, feeling Allison's spirit burn out completely. Now, irritatingly, she could feel a spark of hope reignite her host's resistance. Allison had a milder disposition than her younger sister, but her will was just as strong, even if she didn't realize it herself.

"Don't be so cocky," Ruby warned her. "I killed her once. I'll do it again."

_We'll see about that._

"You Smith's are all the same," Ruby snarled. Allison was quickly getting under her skin. She had enjoyed the silence in her head all these years. The sooner Allison shut up again the better. "If only you were as good at having each other's backs as you are at mouthing off."

Allison made no reply, but Ruby could feel her smugness.

The demon made sure not to allow her to know, but it drove her mad.

Out of habit, Ruby reached for the holster on her thigh where she kept the silver knife. The weapon she had used to kill Alice the first time as highly symbolic to her. She pulled it free and lifted it up to inspect in the dim light cast by the street lamps outside her car.

Immediately, she knew something was wrong.

"What the-"

She flipped the blade, first in confusion, then desperation. This wasn't her knife. It was the same length and heft as hers, with a similar serrated design and horn handle, but the blade of this knife was unadorned.

"That son of a bitch!" she exclaimed.

Sam must have lifted the knife from her. When precisely, she couldn't say, but the confusion in the station had given him ample opportunity.

"GOD DAMN IT!" she screamed in frustration, beating her steering wheel and beeping her anger into the night.

In the back of her head, Allison just laughed and laughed.

* * *

Alice and Dean hunched over the motel room table, listening intently to Sam on the speakerphone. He was regaling them with his tale of woe, albeit minus Ruby.

"... so no, long story short, I did _not_ get the colt," Sam finished.

Alice's face had stuck in a mask of bemused amazement from the minute the FBI entered Sam's narrative. Now, she finally burst out laughing, drawing a glare from Dean.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, trying hard to control herself. "I know, it's terrible. I feel really bad for you, Sam, that sucks, I just... _how are you two on the Federal B_ _ureau of I_ _nvestigation's radar?_ "

She kept chuckling while Dean facepalmed.

"It started with a tough case a few years ago involving a shapeshifter," Sam explained in their defense.

"Yeah, we can be tricky bastards," Alice snickered.

"Alice, you're not really a shapeshifter," Dean pointed out. "You know that, right? You're just in one. Don't get it mixed up."

"A rose by any other name," Alice said off-handedly. "So, this Henricksen. Please tell me he's closing your case now that he's seen the light. Or, the terrible smelly black smoke, I guess."

"Something like that. He told the coroner we were killed in a helicopter explosion," Sam explained.

"You didn't mention a helicopter," Dean frowned.

"They brought one in to transport me to supermax."

"Wow. That does it," Alice scoffed. "Now I've heard everything. So, time to meet up, superstar. You wanna come to us, or should we come to you?"

"Actually, I was thinking we could meet in the middle," Sam said. "I've got a line on a possible case in Sikeston, Missouri."

"Exact middle. Fair as King Solomon," Alice commented.

"What kind of case?" Dean asked.

"Might be nothing," Sam amended. "But it's a convenient rendezvous point, and it's worth checking out while we're swinging through. I'll email you the article."

"Uh, excuse me," Alice said snidely, "With all due respect to the suffering civilians, don't we have bigger fish to fry? Not for nothing, but Dean doesn't have forever. You don't have the colt, and the way I see it, we don't have enough time left to keep playing cat and mouse with this Talbot character."

"You got a better idea?" Dean asked.

"Yeah. We find a little town in the middle of nowhere and make ourselves a weapon that can kill a demon," Alice suggested.

"You're not saying..."

"It's a simple recipe," Alice went on. "I remember all the ingredients, the incantation..."

"Ok, but let's not forget that one of the the ingredients is the blood of a hundred innocent souls!" Dean said, voice rising wrathfully. "I mean for crying out loud, didn't you learn your lesson the first time?"

"Uh, guys..."

"Hey, I'm just trying to keep you from spending an eternity in damnation!" Alice snapped. Neither of them heard Sam over their arguing. "Our options are severely limited at this point!"

"That's never an option!" Dean yelled. "I mean, god damn, Alice! If that's the way you want me to save myself, I may as well not even bother! I'll be damned anyway when this is all said and done!"

"Hey!" Sam yelled over the phone. "Both of you, just chill out! No one needs to sacrifice anyone! I already have a weapon that can kill Lilith!"

Alice and Dean were stunned into silence for a long moment.

"You do?" Alice asked, confounded.

Dean kept glaring at her, seriously disturbed by her proposition, even in light of Sam's revelation.

"Yeah. It's, uh... it's yours, actually, Alice."

"It is?"

Alice's expression was blank with confusion.

"You mean... my knife? You have my knife?"

"Yeah."

Dean tensed. That could only mean one thing. Sam was with Ruby. But surely he couldn't be planning to bring Ruby anywhere near Alice...

"How?" she demanded. "The last time I saw that thing, Ruby was pulling it out of my chest."

"It was with the demons that attacked the station," Sam explained. "I pulled it off one of the bodies after the exorcism."

Dean knew he was lying, but didn't say anything. He let his face fall into his hands. Between Sam's secrets and Alice's lack of a conscience, he was forced to wonder if he wasn't already dead and being subjected to his own personal hell.

"Wow," Alice said quietly. "I, uh... I wonder if Ruby was with them. My... my sister's body wasn't there, was it?"

"No. I, uh... I'm pretty sure it wasn't," Sam replied uneasily.

Alice took a deep, steadying breath.

"Ok. Thanks, Sam. We'll, uh... we'll see you in Sikeston."

The call ended and Alice settled back in her seat, taking a moment to let it all sink in. She wasn't sure how she felt about the prospect of finally reuniting with the knife she and her sister had created together so long ago. A lot had happened since then. For a long time, it had been her most treasured possession. The strongest memento she had from Allison and her greatest weapon in the hunts that kept her occupied through those long, lonely years. A heavy reminder of her roots and the cost of power.

It was a bitter loss when Ruby managed to wrench it from her grasp. That wound only festered over time, and Alice came to associate the knife with her failure to put an end to the demon that destroyed the only family she had.

Then, the ultimate insult. Alice remembered the night Ruby killed her with the silver knife like it was yesterday. She remembered the shock she had felt seeing Ruby. That night, she sent an experienced demon hunter after her nemesis, and was assured that the hunt was finally over. Needless to say, Alice's feelings on the matter were mixed. She made a trip to the liquor store and bought enough tequila to celebrate her victory over her adversary. She also bought enough whiskey to mourn the death of her older sister.

By the time she stumbled back into her motel room, she was already too drunk to see straight. She heard the demon before she saw her.

_"Hey, little sister."_

The next thing Alice knew was pain. She didn't have time to fight back, didn't have time to cry out. All she could do was choke on her own blood as Ruby leered at her with Allison's lips, promising tauntingly to pay her a visit in hell.

Alice shuddered and shook herself violently out of the memory. She quickly glanced down at her chest to reassure herself that she was well and truly in the present. She saw no blood, no stab wound, no scar.

Dean broke her reverie when he stood abruptly, chair scraping harshly against the floor as he grabbed his phone and jacket.

"What's wrong?" she asked in alarm.

"You," he spat accusingly.

"Me?!" Alice demanded, features twisting into a glare.

"Yeah, you. I need some air."

Dean stormed out of the room before she could say another word, slamming the door behind him. He strode down the sidewalk, glancing behind him to make sure Alice wasn't following as he redialed Sam's number. This time, it went to voicemail.

"Call me back, Sam," he growled. "I know you're with Ruby, or you were with her... What the hell is wrong with you?! I told you to kill that skank the next time you saw her! And that was before Alice was back in the picture! Do you have any idea- You know what? Just call me. I can't believe you. Seriously."

He hung up briskly and stopped pacing. He leaned against the brick motel wall, breathing slowly in an attempt to quell his frustration. That demon was going to stab Sam in the back and he didn't know if there was anything he could do to stop her.

And Alice...

Dean wanted so badly to believe that Alice was good deep down, that there was more to her than met the eye. But maybe her actions were all she was. Maybe deep down, she was just as ugly and twisted as the things she did. If she was doing it all for herself, not out of a sense of obligation to the people she loved...

"Dean?"

Alice's voice startled him enough to make him jump a little. The absolute silence in which she approached him was uncanny.

"Look, I'm sorry," she went on, arms crossed over her chest. "You're right. No point in saving yourself from going to hell by doing things that are going to get you sent to hell anyway."

"So you're sorry because I'm right?" Dean countered angrily. "Not because you maybe feel just a little bad about considering killing a hundred people, _again_ , so you can make a weapon and use it to kill more people?"

"Demons," Alice pointed out.

"Yeah, and the people they possess!"

"I know this isn't what you want to hear from me, but war is messy, Dean," she sighed. "There's collateral. Sometimes on their side, mostly on ours."

The colors in her eyes swirled slowly. The effect had always unsettled Dean, and now he found it downright sinister.

"You think I don't know that?" he demanded. "I've been fighting this war as long as I can remember! I know that you can't always save everyone, but you know what else I know? It's on _us_ to save as many of them as we can! It's on us to leave as few bodies in our wake as possible! To limit the 'collateral'."

"Yeah, well sometimes, one or two dead demon hosts are the fewest bodies it's possible to leave behind," Alice pointed out.

Dean was sick of arguing with her. It was like talking to a brick wall.

"You really believe that, don't you?" he scoffed.

Alice could tell it was a rhetorical question and didn't bother answering.

"I should have stayed in the room," she said instead. "You came out here to get away. I should have let you. My bad."

She turned to leave and Dean felt a pang as he watched her go. Part of him wanted to stop her. He was tired of fighting with her.

Another part of him questioned the part that wanted her so badly. By all accounts, Alice was a horrible person. If she had any redeeming qualities, they had yet to reveal themselves. Why did she matter so much to him?

The crack of thunder immediately overhead interrupted Dean's angsty musings. He scanned the sky with alarm, watching it darken like bruised flesh as clouds advanced menacingly on the bright sun high above. The storm was moving too quickly and it filled Dean with foreboding. He hurried back to the room, where he found Alice already packing.

"You see the nasty storm system closing in?" he asked.

"Yeah. It wasn't in the forecast," Alice said.

"Demonic omen?"

"Best bet. We should move out before we end up in the same bind as Sam."

Dread filled Dean as he realized what she was saying.

"You mean another Alamo reenactment with you and me starring as the Texans."

"Yep. It would seem that we have gone from the hunters to the hunted. Here."

She tossed him a small pouch which he caught and inspected.

"What's this?" he asked, rotating the small leather bag between his fingers. It was sewn completely shut and he could feel something hard and thin inside.

"Hex bag. That one's specifically to keep reapers from being able to find you with their creepy death powers, but it'll at least throw a demon off the trail for a while. It'll do til we get somewhere safe enough for me to put together a few bags tailored to keep us invisible to demons."

"Handy," Dean commented, tucking it into his pocket and trying hard not to think about it's possible contents. "This is encouraging, actually."

Alice handed him a duffel bag, frowning as they headed for the car.

"What, the horde of demons hell bent on tracking us down and flaying us alive?" she asked.

"Yeah. I mean, Lilith wouldn't be sending them after us if she didn't think we posed a threat to her, right?" Dean pointed out. "Going after Sam is one thing, but we're what, five states apart? Unless she's trying to get to him through me, that's going quite a bit out of the way. Maybe there's a snowball's chance that this crazy plan'll work after all."

"You're not wrong," Alice admitted. "But if she's onto us it'll be a thousand times harder to get to her. Give me the element of surprise and a little uncertainty any day. Without surprise on our side, this 'crazy plan' is practically suicide."

"Aw come on," Dean chuckled dryly. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I'm sorry, what was I thinking? Suicide is a fresh new way for me to experience the afterlife," Alice said, rolling her eyes. "Maybe I'll get stuck in purgatory for the rest of eternity. Limbo can't be half as bad as constant torment, right?"

"That's the spirit," Dean said cheerfully.

* * *

In a small town just east of Monument, Sam put the finishing touches on a summoning circle. Sunset cast its rosy light through the cracked remnants of a stained glass window that had once depicted a shepherd with a flock of sheep. Sam felt as though the shepherd was judging him with his single remaining eye, silently reprimanding him for his desecration of the derelict church. Battered and dusty as it was, the place of worship still commanded respect. Funny, Sam noted, how such sanctuaries seemingly gained sacredness with disuse and neglect.

Sam's phone rang as he placed his offering of taco bell and corona in the outer circle. It echoed eerily through the cobwebbed rafters above until he silenced it abruptly by declining the call. Ruby, again, he noticed as he set his phone to airplane mode. He had already listened to four voicemails from her that ranged from furious to conciliatory to apologetic and back again. He also had one from Dean, but he hadn't played it yet.

"Ok," Sam said aloud to himself, taking his place in the inner circle of the summoning ring. He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and began to recite a Spanish translation of the ritual to summon a trickster. He was too engrossed in his work to notice the dark clouds that gathered to obscure the sun outside, draining the life from the stained glass shepherd.

He finished and glanced around expectantly. Sure enough, a man appeared before him, though he was far from what Sam expected.

"Oh my God!" Sam exclaimed, averting his gaze quickly. Huehuecoyotl stood before him, naked as a newborn baby, with the exception of a sailor's tricorn perched crookedly on his head.

"Buen Dios! Por el amor de todos- Ah! Tú!" he yelled.

"Uh, I'm sorry!" Sam yelled back. He didn't understand the words Huehuecoyotl was using, but it wasn't hard to catch his meaning. "I'm so sorry! Uh... here!"

He took his jacket off and blindly tossed it in the Aztec trickster's direction.

"Por el amor de Dios, cabrón! I don't need this!"

Huehuecoyotl tossed the jacket back at Sam, hitting him in the face with it. Sam caught it clumsily, catching sight of a now fully clothed Huehuecoyotl out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm a god! Hello?! I don't need your manky gringo thrift store scraps!" Huehuecoyotl ranted. He was clad in the same stylish burgundy suit as he had sported when Sam met him months ago. He still had the tricorn on, and he adjusted it.

"Right, uh... sorry?" Sam repeated.

"What do you want?! Whatever it is better be important," Huehuecoyotl snapped. "Estaba ocupada con una mujer muy hermosa, ni te lo puedes imaginar!"

"Uh... sure."

"Wait."

Huehuecoyotl took a minute to look around.

"Just you, Chico? No Alice?"

"So you remember!" Sam said triumphantly.

"Remember what?" Huehuecoyotl asked in confusion.

"You remember meeting me and Alice!" Sam said. "Even though Loki erased everything that happened, you still remember!"

"Usted no dice! Soy un dios, que quieres?"

"Uh, can we stick to English?" Sam asked. "I barely passed high school Spanish."

"That explains why your incantation was so terrible," Huehuecoyotl huffed. "So? I assume you didn't just call me here to reminisce?"

"No. I have questions. I think you have answers."

"Why me?"

"Because my questions are about tricksters. You're one."

"Oh muchacho, tenemos un genio en nuestras manos aquí."

"English!"

"I don't have to answer to you, Chico," Huehuecoyotl said, flashing Sam a toothy grin.

"You sure about that?"

"Pretty sure."

"Even though you owe me three debts."

"Wrong. I owe Alice Smith three debts. I don't see Alice Smith here asking me questions and interrupting my love-making, so... unless you have some way to make this worth my time, I'll be on my way."

"You're not going anywhere until I let you out of that containment circle," Sam pointed out.

"What, this piece of crap?" Huehuecoyotl scoffed. Gloatingly, he poked a toe over the line of runes that was supposed to comprise an impassable barrier to his kind.

Sam's face fell. This wasn't how he had planned on this going.

"Damn. Well, alright then," he sighed. "If I did such a bad job, you may as well be on your way."

 _The trick to dealing with Tricksters,_ Sam recalled Alice's words, _is to turn the situation around until they're the ones asking you for help._

"I, uh... I guess I'll just have to find another way to save poor Alice," Sam sighed wistfully, improvising quickly.

"Poor Alice? What's poor about Alice?" Huehuecoyotl asked, interest piqued.

"Oh, you wouldn't care," Sam said dismissively. "Hunters save damsels in distress, tricksters... trick them, I guess."

"Well, hold up now, hijo," Huehuecoyotl said, coming as close to the inner circle as he could. Sam guessed that he had drawn that part correctly, or he would be in a wedding chapel with a buffalo right about now. "I don't mind helping out the occasional damsel... they're usually grateful for the help, si sabes a lo que me refiero."

"Well, I mean, if you really want to help..."

Sam carefully considered how much baiting he really wanted to subject this Trickster to. He didn't want to overplay his hand.

"See, it's her unbreakable promises," Sam said slyly. "They've gotten her into something of a pickle."

Huehuecoyotl chuckled.

"Oh, si. They'll do that if you aren't careful. What'd pobre pequeña Alice do?"

"Well, it's actually a mess she's been stuck in for a while now," Sam explained. "You see, a long time ago, she promised she would take care of someone. There's also this demon she kind of promised to kill.. only, then... well, the demon possessed the person she was supposed to be taking care of. You see the dilemma."

"Ay San Antonio! Pickle indeed," Huehuecoyotl tsked, shaking his head. "Poor Alice indeed... how long as this been going on for?"

"Years."

"And you're only just now finding out?"

"Not exactly. I've just now decided to try to do something about it."

"Algún tipo de amigo eres!" Huehuecoyotl told him, wagging a finger at him as well.

"English," Sam sighed.

"Some kind of friend you are," Huehuecoyotl repeated. "For shame! A catch twenty-two like that! The pain that poor child must have been in this whole time..."

"Pain?"

"But of course! These promises are no parlor trick!" Huehuecoyotl explained. "This is heavy enchantment. Most gods don't even go near it unless they have no other choice."

"But you're a trickster, like the one that gave Alice the ability to forge these promises," Sam protested. "Surely you could do something to help her!"

"What do you want me to do about it? Lift her curse?"

"Well could you?"

"No way. Es imposible."

Sam's heart fell.

"The kind of power it would take for someone other than the being that gave her that gift to take it away... it's not of this world. Maybe if Alice still had friends in high places, but unless she rebuilt those bridges since last I saw her...?"

"You mean Angels? Last I checked they were all out to kill her for convincing one of their commanders to defect," Sam said glumly.

"Hm. Such a shame. I have a lot of admiration for little trickster-touched Alice," Huehuecoyotl said fondly. "But I'm afraid her promises are her cross to bear."

Sam hung his head, his plans going up in smoke before his eyes. They had been half-formed at best, filled with 'if's' and 'maybe's', but they had given him more hope than he'd had in a long time. The idea of working with Alice and Ruby to save Dean from his deal... but it was a crapshoot to begin with. Even more so if Alice was driven to murder Ruby by anything more than a ghostly need for vengeance. As if that wasn't bad enough on it's own...

"As for the two particular promises troubling her... there may be a loophole you can exploit to help ease her suffering," Huehuecoyotl went on.

Sam raised his head hopefully.

"How?"

"Not so fast. What do I get out of the deal? Cómo se ve, estoy dirigiendo una maldita organización benéfica por aquí?"

"Well what do you want?"

"Hm... I might settle for a good word with the Senorita in question," Huehuecoyotl said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

"I mean... I can try," Sam said dubiously. "She doesn't remember you though."

"Look, you set her up, I'll knock her down," Huehuecoyotl said confidently. "Just help me get my foot in the door. I know women. And women like her..."

His gaze grew distant and for a minute Sam thought he was going to start drooling.

"Tal desafío ... pero vale la pena perseguirlo."

"Uh... I'll make sure I mention you," Sam said, cringing a little at the prospect. He tactfully decided not to mention that Alice and Dean were something of an item. Or were they? He assumed they were, but at this point, he didn't think he remembered anything being explicitly said on the matter.

Maybe good ol' Huey had a chance after all.

"So? What's this loophole?"

"Alright, so the promises are powerful, but they are far from magic," Huehuecoyotl explained. "For instance, if I were to make an unbreakable oath to give you every single piece of money in the entire world, I would likely be unable to keep it. Because even I can't get my hands on that much dinero, eh hijo?"

"So the promises are only valid if it's something you can feasibly manage to do," Sam realized. "So... Alice's promises cancel each other out? There's no problem here to start with?"

"Not quite, but you're on the right track. Promises can cancel each other out, but not two promises like the ones she made. In theory, your little lady friend could likely manage to keep both of those promises. It wouldn't be easy, don't get me wrong, but not hard enough to get her off the hook."

"But... if it's possible for one promise to override another, couldn't just having her swear _not_ to kill the demon solve the problem?" Sam asked, struggling a little to keep up with Huehuecoyotl's explanation.

"You're very close," Huehuecoyotl went on. "But still not seeing the whole puzzle. Do I need to spell it out for you?"

"Please do," Sam entreated. "If I knew anything about this, I wouldn't have come to you for help."

"Perezoso cazador de basura. She can't make the promise if she knows it contradicts a promise she's already made," Huehuecoyotl sighed. "You need to trick her into making a conflicting promise."

"Sure. Trick Alice into making a promise she knows she'll have no choice but to keep. That shouldn't be difficult at all."

 _Because Alice just throws her promises around like candy these days,_ Sam thought glumly.

"Hey, not my problem chico. Now, I've got a sincere apology to make. I'll need..."

Huehuecoyotl produced a large bouquet of red roses with a flamboyant flourish and inspected them.

"Hmm, si, si," he muttered to himself.

Suddenly, he lifted his head and sniffed the air with a frown.

"Oh no. You smell that, cazador?" he asked in alarm.

Sam sniffed, but smelled nothing.

"Of course you don't. Come out of there now, I'll take you with me," Huehuecoyotl told him urgently.

"What? No way," Sam scoffed. "So you can disembowel me for interrupting your date? How stupid do you think-"

"Bastante estúpido por lo que he visto hasta ahora. Seriously, there are demons close by. At least five of them. I have no great love for you, Sam Winchester, but I have enough honor that I will not leave you here to die. Also, I _really_ want that good word with the enigmatic Ms. Smith. Vamanos!"

Sam opened his mouth to protest further, but before he could speak, the doors to the church burst open. A man stepped over the sanctuary threshold, a snarl on his face. His eyes were pitch black, freezing Sam's blood in his veins.

"Ahora, cazador! Con Dios!"

Four more demons appeared behind the first, and they advanced in formation on Sam and the Trickster. Sam's eyes darted frantically between the demons and Huehuecoyotl, who had full use of his powers. It was entirely possible that he was baiting Sam, creating and illusion to trick him into leaving the safety of the inner circle so he could punish him for interrupting his evening.

"Winchester! Gato sarnoso de basura, vamos!"

The demons were closing in.

"Oh God, I'm gonna regret this," Sam whimpered. He threw his apprehensions aside, closed his eyes, and leapt into Huehuecoyotl's arms.

"Buen chico! Que intelligente!"

Sam held his breath with no idea what to expect. Was he going to be forced to marry some terrible beast in an unholy union, as described in the awful ballad Huehuecoyotl had regaled him with the first time they met? Did a worse, more humiliating, more creative fate await him?

He felt the wind in his hair and heard a man and a woman yelling in surprise. Through all the chaos, Sam experienced a brief moment of perfect clarity and his panicked mind somehow decided that the only way to save itself was to translate the trickster's last insult.

"Wait, did you just call me a mangy garbage cat?" Sam demanded.

He opened his eyes, dumbfounded when he found himself in the back seat of the Impala in Huehuecoyotl's lap. Dean was driving and Alice was riding shotgun. Dean swerved dangerously, distracted by Sam and Huehuecoyotl's sudden appearance.

They were quite the sight, Sam realized, catching sight of himself in the rearview mirror and realizing that Huehuecoyotl still clutched the enormous bouquet of roses and wore the black sailor's tricorn. It didn't clash with his burgundy suit, but it was certainly an eccentric addition to the outfit.

"Sam?!" Dean demanded.

"Oh my god, what the hell!" Alice cried.

"What on Earth-"

"What in God's name-"

"How did you-"

"Who the hell is that?" Alice demanded as Dean regained enough of his wits to focus on getting the vehicle back under control.

"More importantly, what the hell are you doing in his lap?" Dean demanded.

"Nothing!" Sam yelped, quickly extricating himself from Huehuecoyotl's grasp. "Boy am I glad to see you two! Uh, this is-"

"My name is Huehuecoyotl," the trickster cut in loudly, reaching for Alice's hand. Eyes wide with shock and befuddlement, she allowed him to take it. He placed a long, delicate kiss to the back of her hand, drawing a sideways glare from Dean.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance," Huehuecoyotl purred, holding Alice's eyes intently to make it clear that he was primarily addressing her.

"Sam, who the hell is this clown and what the hell is he doing in my damn car?" Dean demanded.

"Please, Senor, no need for the obscenity," Huehuecoyotl said, winking at Alice. "We must mind the lady."

"Uh... Sure," Alice said uneasily, instinctively placing a hand on the dagger concealed in her jacket.

"My good friend Sam here can explain everything," Huehuecoyotl went on. "Sam?"

"Uh... right," Sam said, struggling to put together a decent story in his mind. He couldn't let Alice know that he was planning to trick her. If he let that slip, it would never work. He was going to have to come up with an excuse for having summoned Huehuecoyotl, and quickly.

He had never told Alice or Dean anything about the six months Loki had subjected him to and then erased.

"Well, I guess I need to start from the beginning," Sam said, clearing his throat. Telling the tale in it's entirety would at least give him enough time to come up with a good excuse for summoning the aztec god of mischief. "It, uh... it all started at the mystery spot. Sort of."

Huehuecoyotl made eyes at Alice, who smiled uneasily and slowly turned to Dean.

"It's kind of cramped in here," she told him loudly. "I'm sure we would all be more comfortable listening to Sam's story... look, a rest stop. Good enough. Exit here, Dean."

"Hold on a minute, I thought we were trying to outrun the demons," Dean protested.

"Wait, you're running from demons too?" Sam asked sharply.

"Dean."

Alice caught his gaze and glanced from Huehuecoyotl to the exit sign and back several times.

"I could really use some space," she said trying to inject as much meaning into the words as possible. She tried to convey the message that she wanted enough room to stab Huehuecoyotl if he got too handsy, but she didn't think Dean got the idea.

Never the less, he took the exit.

"Is awfully cramped in here," he grumbled under his breath. "It's a car, not a damn florist shop. Jesus Christ."

Huehuecoyotl just smiled seductively at a seriously creeped out Alice, while Sam buried his face in his hands.


	25. Howl To Hell

Sam finally told Alice and Dean about the erased timeline that played out after the mystery spot nightmare. Alice busied herself digging through the Impala's trunk, cobbling together the beginnings of demon-repelling hex bags. She kept a wary eye on Huehuecoyotl as she made a list of the ingredients she would need to complete them. Dean leaned against the side of the car with his arms crossed, features stuck in a scowl that danced between Sam and the Trickster.

The sky above was an island of brilliant blue. Dark clouds closed in around them from all sides.

"So, that's everything," Sam concluded.

"Really? Everything? You sure?" Dean asked with narrowed eyes. He glanced meaningfully at the demon-killing knife that hung on Sam's hip.

"What, you want more details?" Sam asked, returning Dean's glare. He nodded in Alice's direction without breaking eye contact. "Alice? Anything you need clarified?"

Dean clenched his jaw. Sam's meaning was clear. They could talk about Ruby's involvement when Alice was out of earshot.

"Yes, actually," Alice said, oblivious to the brothers' unspoken exchange. "What the hell is he here for?"

She nodded at Huehuecoyotl, who glanced at Sam expectantly.

"Uh..."

Sam cleared his throat, while Huehuecoyotl winked at him, no doubt anticipating the 'good word' that Sam owed him.

"I summoned him... because... well... like I mentioned, he owes you some favors, Alice."

"Does he really though?" Alice asked uncertainly. "I mean, how strong can these promises possibly be? I was amazed when I found out that ability stuck with me through hell and back, but through time travel?"

"You've done a fair amount of time travelling," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, but... I mean, I've never had a whole six months of my life erased before," Alice chuckled. She stopped abruptly, eyes widening in alarm. "At least... I mean... I don't think I have. Oh god. What if I _have_?"

Alice fell silent as the horrifying implications of her realization began to settle in.

"Jesus, who am I? Who is anyone?" she muttered to herself contemplatively.

Huehuecoyotl's gaze turned sour, and Sam cleared his throat nervously.

"I mean, that's not all, of course," he said awkwardly. "Huey's... fun to have around? Uh..."

Huehuecoyotl nodded along, but was clearly unsatisfied.

"He's great at... parties. Wonderful singer... uh..."

Dean and Alice frowned at Sam like he'd lost his mind.

"Ok, if you're done jerking the guy off, can you get to the point?" Dean demanded.

"Well, that was the point," Sam said.

"You think the solution to our problems is a party? With singing?" Alice frowned.

"No! The favors! That was the point!" Sam exclaimed defensively.

"Huh. Right. So I can ask for anything?" Alice wondered.

"I think that was the deal," Sam said.

"Nice," Alice replied. She went back to adding items to her list.

Huehuecoyotl cleared his throat loudly.

"Sam. A word?"

Sam sighed heavily and stepped away from the car with the Trickster.

" _What was that_?" Huehuecoyotl demanded.

"What?"

"You suck. You're the worst wingman ever, muchacho."

"I thought you just needed to get your foot in the door?"

"This is a heavy iron door," Huehuecoyotl pointed out. "If it's slammed shut with my foot in it, I'm going to lose the foot! Do better!"

"Look, I'm gonna shoot straight with you; I really don't think you're going to get anywhere with Alice anyway," Sam said pointedly.

"Cabron. Have you seen me?" Huehuecoyotl asked, his tone insinuating that nothing more needed to be said.

Sam sighed heavily.

"Oh man."

Behind them, Alice and Dean conferred quietly.

"Ok, so Sam's idea is dangerous," Alice mused. "Like, really dangerous. Tricksters are even harder to deal with than demons. They're twice as slimy and five times as clever. On the other hand, we could really use these three favors Sam says this guy owes me. He's powerful enough that having him working for us almost puts us on equal footing with Lilith. Maybe. So? Thoughts, comments, concerns?"

"Yeah, I don't trust this guy at all," Dean replied.

"Good, don't. Ever."

"I don't like him either. He's making a lot of eyes at you."

"Gee, really? I hadn't noticed," Alice rolled her eyes, oozing sarcasm. "Anything more productive? There's a lot at stake here. No pun intended."

"If we're taking votes, I prefer to avoid working with anything that's not human," Dean said.

Alice gave him a long, judging look.

"You know what I mean," Dean groaned.

"Well, I hate Tricksters with a passion. That being said, we could use him. Your soul, your call."

"Oh nice, put all the pressure on me," Dean scowled. "Ok, say we send him packing. Then what's our next move?"

"Unless you know somewhere else we can get all this," Alice said, showing him her ingredient list, "we need to find a coven of witches so we can finish these hex bags. After that, priority is on locating Lilith. Witches could solve that problem too."

"What?! So you don't want to work with the Trickster, but you have no problem hunting down some witches so we can ask them for help?" Dean hissed.

"Hey, most witches are human," Alice shrugged. "And they're really dumb. It's super easy not to get screwed over by witches. Just watch 'em close while you're working with them, and kill them after."

"How about we skip the witchcraft and the Trickster? Bobby probably has all these creepy dead thing parts," Dean said, examining the list more closely. "And he has tons of lore books. We could find a ritual to locate Lilith, maybe even summon her."

"That's a lot of research. You don't have that much time left, Dean."

"I've got a month."

"Is that so? Perse told me three weeks."

"Three weeks of you, me, Sam and Bobby scouring lore books is a lot of overturned stones."

"I guess."

They both glanced at Sam and Huehuecoyotl, deep in hushed conversation.

"I wonder what they're conspiring about," Alice muttered, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"Who knows."

"Do you think Sam's telling us everything?"

Dean had been preparing himself to answer this question, but still found himself unable to lie to her straight out.

"I don't know. Seems like it, but..."

"Something's off."

"Yeah."

"Dean?"

"Mm?"

"If I ask you something, could you promise to answer me truthfully?"

"What, you don't trust me?"

Alice thought about it for a minute.

"Huh. I guess I do," she realized after a moment.

Dean had been kidding, and her answer surprised him. It also made him feel bad.

"Look, back when we first met, the first time I sent Sam after Ruby... he came back talking about how he knew her," Alice went on. "I had a lot of time to think about that... he said she saved his life. Did you ever find out why?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably. He didn't want to lie to her. Alice's trust was a rare thing to have, and he didn't want to abuse it, but he knew it would be trouble if he told her the truth.

"No," Dean said carefully. "She didn't stick around to chat that night."

"And you never saw her again after that?"

"Well, after that we got dropped back in time and we saw her plenty."

"But after we got Loki to send you back. Did you ever see her again?"

Dean hesitated, trying to think of the best way to answer her. He almost died from relief when Huehuecoyotl and Sam returned, interrupting them.

"Ah, Senorita que hermosa," Huehuecoyotl sighed, offering Alice a rose. "Sam here was just telling me all about what troubles you. Please, is there no way I could be of assistance?"

Alice looked to Dean for an answer.

"Uh... oh, what the hell," Dean muttered. "Beats witches."

He handed the list back to Alice and nodded.

"You know what, it's sweet of you," Alice said, pushing the rose back to Huehuecoyotl gently. "But, um... I'm allergic. Thanks anyway though. If you really want to help, there is a favor I could use."

"Name it."

"There's this demon called Lilith. If I sent you on an assassination run, I don't suppose you could pull it off?"

Huehuecoyotl's face fell.

"Wow, qué tal la luna? Te gustaría eso también? Es menos probable que me rompa en pedazos mientras lo agarro."

"I'll take that as a no," Alice said. She scribbled a few extra items onto her list and handed it to him. "How about this? More your speed?"

"You're using one of the favors I owe you to... send me on a grocery run?" Huehuecoyotl asked in disbelief.

"And bring my truck while you're at it."

Huehuecoyotl flashed a look of extreme disgruntlement, but quickly rearranged his features into an accommodating smile.

"Tú eres el jefe. Whatever you desire, mi hermosa sombra."

"Yeah. Quickly, if you don't mind," Alice said, glancing at the sky with concern. "Clearly it's no problem for you to find us on the move, so do that. Just stash my truck somewhere safe and bring me back the address."

She and the Winchesters piled into the Impala, leaving Huehuecoyotl alone just as it began to drizzle.

"Presa difícil de hecho," he said to himself.

He vanished as the hunters pulled away and the rain began to pour in earnest.

* * *

As a demon, Ruby could get around fast. It was one of the perks she least enjoyed, despite her hundred years spent earning it in Hell. A trick like that called on the dark powers that all hellspawn carried in the corrupt, pitch black pit that had once been their souls. It left a mark that was easily detected, like a stain on the mortal world. Those with the right know-how could use it follow the being that left it behind. Ruby preferred to leave as little of a trail as possible. She was hunted constantly just by virtue of what she was, but she had made many enemies on both sides of the eternal holy war between the forces of good and evil. More demons wanted her head than humans.

Today, she didn't have time to rely on speeding. She needed to be where Sam was immediately. Luckily, another of her gifts was the ability to find. Things, people... demonic influence covered the world like an inky net, and she could tap into it to get locations. Especially on someone like Sam Winchester. The exquisite abomination that was his blood gave off a psychic stench that was hard to disguise.

Even with her dark powers, she wasn't fast enough to catch up with Sam. By the time she appeared outside the church where she felt his presence, he had vanished.

She grit her teeth in frustration. Not only was Sam gone, but the place was swarming with other demons. Lilith's goons.

Ruby cursed and quickly ducked behind a black truck. She had no doubt that she was on Lilith's enemy list after what she had done at the police station. Any attempt to bullshit her way in would be suicide. If she was recognized, they would drag her down to hell and interrogate her til judgement day. All her intricate plans would go to hell with her.

 _Yeah, your plans are real impressive,_ Allison sneered from the depths of her skull. _How's playing Sam Winchester working out for you so far, honey?_

Ruby rolled her eyes, but ignored Allison. She reached out to search for Sam again, but this time felt very little. He was still moving, though not as quickly now. Probably in a car. Definitely with weak hex bags close by. They were just enough to keep her from pinning him down.

What she could tell was that he was very, very far away from this dinky little church that Lilith's crew were busy tearing apart. Much farther away than he could possibly have gotten on his own. He was more than human, but not that much more. Not yet, anyway. Ruby quickly realized that he must have had help.

But from who?

"Perdoneme, Senorita."

A low, husky voice from behind Ruby startled her so badly that she would have smoked out of her host if she hadn't been locked in. Acting on pure reflex, she pulled the knife from the sheath on her thigh, plunged it into the gut of the man behind her, and clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his scream. She did all this so quickly that it wasn't until after they were both on the ground that she remembered the knife she had was useless against demons. For a split second, she was sure that she was completely screwed.

One more second, however, and she got her first look at the man. It wasn't a demon. Just a well-dressed hispanic man in a tricorn. He lay still beneath her, eyes wide and fixed skywards in shock.

Ruby assumed he was dead. She sighed in relief as she pulled the knife from his body. She needed to get out of here before a real demon found her. Out of habit, she started wiping the blood off her blade on the man's shirt. Once again, he startled her.

"Oh, que grosero!" the man groaned, propping himself up on one elbow. He swatted at the knife with his free hand.

Ruby stifled a yelp and stabbed him again.

"Detener! Por qué- Hey, what's your problem, chica!" the man exclaimed, seemingly unfazed by the continued stabbing. He snapped his fingers, and the knife was replaced with a palm-sized smiley-faced stress ball. Ruby was too shocked to keep assaulting the man as he stood.

"Just cool it, ok woman?" the man frowned. "My business isn't with you. You were in my way, that's all. Demonios, lo juro por Dios, todos y cada uno..."

Ruby watched him warily, and he returned her suspicious glare. He slowly got into the cab of the black truck, holding her gaze the entire time.

"Deberías probar aeróbicos," he suggested. "Muy relajante, saca todo ese estrés y mala energía."

Ruby didn't speak a word of Spanish, but Allison was fluent.

 _What did he say?_ Ruby demanded.

Allison laughed dementedly and refused to share her knowledge with the demon. Ruby could have wrestled her consciousness into submission and forced her to yield a translation, but she was quickly preoccupied. The truck and the Mexican disappeared without warning, leaving the demons in the church with an unobstructed view of their wayward sister. None of them noticed her immediately, and she didn't wait around for that to happen. She disappeared as suddenly as the truck, zapping as close to Sam as she could get.

She found herself at a rest stop in Ohio. Sam wasn't there, but she could tell that he had been, and very, very recently. She'd missed him by minutes.

Thunder cracked ominously in the West. The sky above was black and brooding, despite the fact that it was mid day. Ruby didn't need the omens to tell that there were other demonic forces nearby. Ones more powerful than mere demons, if she wasn't mistaken.

A monstrous howl echoed from the direction of the highway, chilling Ruby to the bone. A shiver ripped through her as the baying of hell hounds brought back horrific memories of her descent to hell.

Lilith wasn't playing games or taking chances. She was pulling all the stops to get her claws into her prey. When she did, Sam's head on a stake would affirm her hold over the demonic horde spreading across the globe. Dean's would be a grim, strong reminder that no one cheated Hell. A twofold victory for the queen of damnation.

Ruby was out of moves. Sam was important. Vital, as a matter of fact. Even so, there was nothing she could do to help him unarmed.

He was on his own this time.

* * *

Rain came down in sheets around the Impala as Dean sped toward the Ohio border. The storm was on top of them with no end in sight. They were all three seasoned hunters. They knew what it meant.

They were surrounded.

"We just need to make it to Bobby's," Dean said, trying to keep his tone reassuring.

"Wrong," Sam pointed out. "We need to head away from Bobby's til Huehuecoyotl comes back with those hex bags. That last thing we need is to lead the demons straight to him."

"Dean, drive faster," Alice urged, peering out the window intently.

"I'm doing sixty, and this rain isn't letting up," Dean replied.

"Neither is the smoke."

Dean followed her gaze and saw two, three, four thin columns of pitch black smoke racing alongside the car.

"Shit."

He hit the gas and poured all his focus into keeping the car from sliding on the slick highway. Water sprayed violently in their wake. The rain pelted the road ahead, and made Dean feel like he was gliding over the surface of a lake. At any moment they could sink beneath it's inky surface, swallowed up forever by it's unfathomable depths. He shook his head to clear it of the illusion and the foreboding it filled him with.

Something big impacted the roof of the car, startling them all. The tension in the air snapped like a rubber band, sending adrenaline coursing through the hunters in unison.

"Tell me this car is warded," Alice plead.

"Every inch," Dean replied.

"Alice."

Sam pulled a duffel from beneath the back seat and held up a shotgun. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the silver knife.

"Pick your poison," he told her.

Alice instinctively reached for the knife, but stopped just before her fingers met the hilt. The sight of the weapon she once treasured now sent a sickening jolt through her chest, straight to her gut. Her stomach turned and she felt nauseous.

She took the shotgun.

"Extra rounds?" she asked.

"A few. Most of our stock is in the trunk," Sam explained.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dean caught sight of something twisted and hideous in his rearview.

"What the hell?!" he exclaimed, averting his full gaze to the mirror.

"Dean, watch out!" Alice screamed.

She grabbed the wheel and twisted it to the side. Dean turned his gaze back to the road just in time to see a pillar of smoke barrel down the lane they had been in only seconds before. It would have been a head-on collision. The car slipped and slid precariously under Alice's jerky control, threatening to spiral off the highway altogether. Dean cursed, shoved her away from the wheel, and managed to keep the Impala on the blacktop. Despite his efforts, they still spun dangerously, shrieks and profanities filling the cabin as the car completed several 360 degree spins. Dean finally wrested it to a halt, and everything was silent for a minute.

"Shit, Alice!" Dean growled. "You trying to get us killed?!"

"Drive!" she yelled back at him. "And keep your eyes on the road! You're the one who's gonna get us killed!"

"I saw something back there!" Dean yelled back as he accelerated again.

"Did you now?!" Alice demanded sarcastically.

"It wasn't a demon! It was something else!"

"It doesn't matter what-"

Alice was cut off as the world stopped short. The car rammed into something invisible, but sizable. The effect was like reality itself being slapped in the face. All three hunters were thrown forward. Dean cried out as he faceplanted onto the steering wheel. A single, short honk reverberated through the darkness as blood poured from his nose. Alice was thrown clear from her seat and smacked against the windshield only to bounce back hard. Sam was the luckiest, having his momentum broken immediately by the front seats.

Dean was disoriented and in pain, but one look outside jolted him back into action.

"What the hell are those things?!" he demanded.

Alice just groaned, struggling to regain her bearings after the hit she had taken. Howls and growls surrounded them as Dean threw the car into reverse.

"Hell hounds," Alice moaned, wiping hot, sticky blood from her forehead.

The tires squealed loudly as Dean backed away from the creatures closing in on them from all sides.

"Where?!" Sam demanded, peering out the window with narrowed eyes.

Dean hit another of the twisted, deformed creatures in his haste to escape. It's kin threw themselves against the car wrathfully, slavering.

"They must not be here for you," Alice told Sam, straightening as her vision came back into focus. A glance out the window sent a shiver down her spine. The whole car rocked dangerously as a hound slammed into the passenger side.

"They can only be seen by hell bound souls. Usually right before they're dragged away to suffer eternal torment. Don't get me wrong though, they'll maul anything in their path."

"Can they die?" Sam asked.

Dean was doing fifty in reverse now, but the hounds were still in sight, bounding after them.

"Sure. Switch with me," Alice said, holding out her shotgun.

"What?"

"The knife'll kill them. You can't see them. Turns out I don't have time for PTSD today."

"What?!"

"Just give me the knife!"

"Will the salt shells even do any good?!" Sam demanded.

"They'll keep them off your ass for a few seconds if it comes down to it."

"I'll stick with the knife, thanks."

"And what, slash at thin air til you hit something?! Don't be stupid!"

Sam was far from happy, but he did as she said.

Black smoke whooshed past the front of the car, missing them by inches.

"Where the hell is that trickster?!" Dean yelled. "We need to get out of here!"

"No one's stupid enough to zap into the middle of a mess like this! We're on our own!" Alice sneered.

"Call him, Alice!" Sam urged. "Call in a favor, get him here now!"

"How?!"

"Just try!"

"Huehuecoyotl! I need help! I need a favor!" Alice cried.

Nothing happened.

"Satisfied, Sam? Now I feel stupid!"

"It was worth a shot!"

Dean glimpsed another column of smoke coming for them out of the corner of his eye. In the next instant it smashed into the passenger side of the car, sending them flipping through the air. They were tossed around like dice in a cup for what felt like an eternity, before gravity decided the time had come to exert it's authority once again. The impact with the ground was earth shattering and it left them all reeling, but miraculously upright. Sam thought he'd bitten his tongue off for a minute. His relief when he found it was still in his mouth was shallow.

"Dean? Alice?"

He was answered by a string of profanities from Dean.

"My car! These... bitches..."

"We've got... bigger problems," Alice gasped, gesturing out the window. The hell hounds had coalesced into a loose circle around the impala. She counted seven. There were people coming too. Demons, no doubt.

Dean tried to start the car, to no avail.

"God damn it!" he swore.

"We're going to have to fight," Sam said.

"We need to get into the trunk," Alice pointed out. "We'll never make it."

"We have to try," Dean replied. "You two cover me. I'll pop the trunk. We'll at least have a fighting chance."

Alice clenched her jaw. They really wouldn't, but she wasn't about to lay down and die either.

"Alright. Let's go."

They sprang from the car in unison, Sam shooting right out of the gate as Dean made a mad dash for the trunk. Hell hounds charged them from all sides. The first one reached Dean as he put the key in. Alice slashed the dog with a feral shriek and it rounded on her with fiery eyes. She buried the knife to the hilt in it's neck, feeling savage satisfaction as she pulled and ripped it's throat open.

A second dog slammed into her from behind, knocking her to the ground and digging it's claws into her back. She screamed, drawing Sam's attention. He fired at the air above her and was rewarded with a keening whimper and a spray of tar-like blood.

"Sam! Left!" Alice yelled.

He fired to his left, gaining another hit while Alice tackled a fourth dog. Dean, meanwhile, pulled a shotgun from the trunk and fired at a hellhound coming straight at Sam.

"Cover me!" Sam yelled. He dipped into the trunk, searching for more ammunition.

Alice was in bad shape, but she was alive with adrenaline. This was battle at it's purest. All out, life or death. She gutted her third hellhound, and was surprised to find a lull in the chaos. The remaining dogs hung back with their demonic masters.

"What are they waiting for?" Sam asked.

"Reinforcements, probably," Alice sneered, straightening. She was in a lot of pain, but she could feel the shifter body setting it's own bones, shedding broken skin and replacing it.

"We need to get out of here," Dean said urgently.

"No shit. But I don't think your car's going anywhere without some work," Alice sighed. "Look, if we don't make it out of here-"

"We have to!" Dean insisted.

"I like your attitude, but in case we don't..."

Alice glanced at the demons one more time to make sure they weren't advancing. When she was sure they were staying put, she kissed Dean quickly. He stiffened in surprise, then frowned.

"That's it?" he asked. "That's your grand sendoff?"

"Cut me some slack. We both know I'm no Juliet."

"Guys, is this really the time?!" Sam demanded in disbelief.

"Now or never," Dean chuckled. "So we may as well do it right."

He pulled Alice into a deep, passionate kiss. It wasn't long, but it was instructive.

"That's how it's done," he told Alice.

"I see."

Slow clapping from the side drew their attention.

"A beautiful performance," Huehuecoyotl sighed. "Tan conmovedor. I assume the favor you wanted was a quick escape? Or would you prefer musical accompaniment for this touching moment?"

"You're only just now showing up?!" Alice stormed. " _After_ I got my ass used as a chew toy?!"

"Hey, I got here as quick as I could!" Huehuecoyotl protested.

Snarling, the hell hounds charged. This time, the demons came with them.

"So, you want that second favor, or..."

"Yes please!"

The scene changed around them in a heartbeat. They were in a packed parking lot. Overheard the sun shone bright and warm. Sam, Dean and Alice squinted at the sudden light, glaring unbearably off the cars around them. They were quite the sight, soaked through and splattered with black gore, mud and their own blood. The Impala was actually in impressive shape, considering the beating it had taken. The paint job was marred by monstrous claw marks, but aside from that, it was merely dented.

"Tough ass car," Alice observed numbly.

"Thanks. She's real steel," Dean replied, patting the car fondly. His tone was just as flat as hers. They were both in shock. What they had just experienced barely felt real. Huehuecoyotl's teleportation was too sudden, the change in pace and environment too much for their brains to handle.

"So... where are we?" Sam asked after a long moment of silence.

"Not far from where you were," Huehuecoyotl told him. "A state over. Just far enough to be safe, for the time being."

He handed Alice a plastic shopping bag and a scrap of paper. A quick look at the bags contents revealed that Huehuecoyotl had gathered all the ingredients she needed to make hex bags that would keep Lilith and her forces from finding them.

"Thanks. Better late than never, I guess," she sighed. She squirmed uncomfortably as slime slowly dripped down her back. A gob of it plopped onto the ground behind her with a sickening squelch. "And my truck?"

Huehuecoyotl nodded to her left. She followed his gaze and saw her truck parked a few spots down.

"Efficient," she commended him.

"So, any more requests?" Huehuecoyotl asked. "I could put you up in the finest suite this country has to offer... or maybe you would prefer the finest suite somewhere far away from these demons who want your guts so badly?"

Alice narrowed her eyes at the aztec trickster. Her heart was still pounding, blood still burning, muscles still taut and ready for a fight. The escape was a relief, but she was still adjusting to the lack of monsters trying to rip her throat out. She wasn't in the mood to deal with games.

"Nice try. I'll be holding onto that last favor for a while though," she said. "Until then, adios muchacho."

"Alice, Alice..." Huehuecoyotl sighed. "No te mentiré querida, yo-"

"I don't speak spanish," Alice interrupted him wearily.

"Of course. I could not conceal my intentions from you, my dear. I am forced to confess..."

"If you proposition me I'll stab you."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Huehuecoyotl said, gesturing dramatically. "De todos modos, me han apuñalado más que suficiente por un día. A gentleman knows when he has been beaten."

He bowed shortly to Dean, garnering no reaction from any of the hunters.

"My friend, I wish you all the luck in the world. El infierno aún puede reclamarte, pero sí declaro que debes haber probado el cielo en ella brazos."

With that, and the quick, mysterious strum of an unseen guitar, Huehuecoyotl took his leave, vanishing before their eyes with a final, boyish grin.

"Christ, Sam," Dean groaned. "What a piece of work. I can't believe you managed to dig up a bigger douchebag than Loki."

Sam shrugged.

"He's not all bad. You gotta admire his style."

"Yeah. If you're a fan of those pushy mariachi bands that attack you during dinner and pretend they don't speak enough english to know you want them to leave," Alice snorted derisively.

Sam smiled to himself. So much for his good word.

"So what now? Hex bags, Bobby's?" he asked.

"That's the plan," Dean replied. He turned to Alice, who was assembling the hex bags on the Impala trunk. "You got those, or you need help?"

"There's nothing to this step," she replied. "I got it. But... I think you two had better go to Bobby's on your own."

"What? Why?" Dean asked. "Because Sam says you two didn't get along in that timeline Loki erased?"

"That's putting it mildly," Sam muttered.

"Come on Dean, since when have you known me to give a damn whether anyone likes me?" Alice pointed out. "I can work with whoever I need to if it gets a job done. Actually, I... I haven't been able to stop thinking about the Smiths you mentioned. The ones in Arkansas."

"Your family?"

"Let's not call them that for now. I don't know these people."

"So what do you want with them?"

"Well, my grandmother was the best demon hunter I ever knew," Alice explained. "She was always going on about how the 'good work' was in our blood. Tradition, heritage, legacy, blah blah. I was never big into it, but..."

"But you think these other Smiths could help Dean," Sam caught on.

"It's worth a shot."

"No," Dean said immediately. "It's a compound full of hunters. They'll kill you on sight."

"We don't know that."

"Think about it, Alice, what would you have done if something like you crossed your path when you were alive?" Dean asked.

"Dean's got a point," Sam agreed.

"If things go sideways, I'll handle it," Alice insisted. "Come on, you just watched me go head to head with a pack of hell hounds. You think I can't deal with a few hunters if they aren't friendly?"

"Look, if you really want to pay the Smiths a visit, we should all go," Dean countered. "Strength in numbers."

"No. It's smarter to split up," Alice said decisively. "We can't afford to put all our eggs in one basket at this point. Your clock is ticking."

"Alice-"

"I'm not asking permission. You know that, right?"

She held Dean's eyes. He found no compromise in her gaze, no give. He knew arguing with her was pointless. She had already committed to doing this alone, and there was nothing he could do or say to sway her.

"I know," he sighed.

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "Text me the address. I'll see you on the flipside."

She tossed him a hex bag, and started for her truck. She had a last thought, however, and turned back.

"Here," she said, flipping the silver knife and holding it out to Dean by the blade. "You need this more than I do. And I honestly can't stand it anymore, so..."

Dean took the handle, inspecting the knife reverently. He couldn't help remembering the first time he'd seen it in that motel room. It felt like a lifetime ago. In a way, it was.

"Be careful," he told her as she walked away.

Alice laughed over her shoulder.

"Me, careful? Not in this life."


	26. Seek, That Ye May Find

Sam knew that the minute Dean got him alone he was going to want answers, so he braced himself as Alice pulled off.

"So... that was insane," Dean commented. He turned the silver knife over in his hands, inspecting the runes on it's blade thoughtfully.

"You're telling me," Sam replied. "I guess this is our life from here on out."

"Nah. Just for three weeks til I'm out of your hair," Dean joked. It fell completely flat.

"Regret bringing me back yet?" Sam joked back, trying to lift the mood.

"Oh, absolutely. Worst decision of my life," Dean confirmed.

They stood in silence for a while, Sam soaking in the sun's warmth like a reptile. It slowly dried the mud caked in his clothes and made him feel unbearably sleepy. The adrenaline had seeped from his system, leaving him drained of all energy and emotion.

"That was a joke," Dean finally said. He sounded as weary as Sam felt.

"I know."

"So. I don't suppose you feel like driving?"

"Not really, but I'll do it."

"We should call it a day. Check in somewhere, get cleaned up and head to Bobby's in the morning," Dean suggested.

"Sounds great."

They got in the car, Dean still toying silently with the silver knife.

"Sam, what's the deal with you and Ruby?" he finally asked. "What, you knew she had the knife, so you figured summoning her to get it would be easier than chasing Bela all around creation?"

Sam was torn between telling the truth and lying. Dean's theory was generous and offered him an easy way out of what was otherwise guaranteed to be an unwinnable argument. At the same time, Sam wanted to be deserving of the faith his brother had in him. Lying, even by omission, wasn't the way to do that.

"She came to me. In Phoenix," Sam admitted. "I sent her away, but then when we split up, I asked her to help me get the colt from Bela. She agreed, then... we got tied up with the FBI, and that was a whole mess. She saved my life there though, again."

"Right. Because she's the demon with a heart of gold," Dean scoffed.

"Maybe not, but I don't think she's completely full of it either," Sam said.

"Come on Sam! You know what she did to Alice!" Dean pointed out with disbelief.

"And that makes her evil?"

"You can't be serious!"

"I am, Dean. I mean, yeah, it was pretty terrible, but look at it from Ruby's point of view. Alice-"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"No, Dean, listen! Alice tortured and killed Ruby! What would you have done in her shoes?"

"Oh, right, what was I thinking?" Dean exclaimed sarcastically. "Of course killing the kid's grandmother and permanently hijacking her sister's body was the appropriate reaction. My bad."

Sam sighed, and gave up.

"I'm not saying she was right. Just that... you know what, never mind. We won't have to deal with Ruby for a while. I took her knife and ditched her. She can't find us now that we have these hex bags, so that's the end of it."

"Is it?"

"Yes, Dean. It is."

"You sure? The next time you need backup, a demon isn't going to be your first choice?"

"Of course not."

"Hey, don't act like I'm being a dick. I'm just looking out for you, Sam."

 _Like always,_ Dean thought, but he kept that to himself.

"I know. I'm just trying to do the same," Sam replied.

"And I appreciate it, but... I can look out for myself."

Sam snorted derisively.

"What? I can," Dean insisted.

"Sure. You can look out for me, yourself, and everyone else in the world, all at the same time."

"If that's what I have to do, so be it."

"It isn't."

"If you say so."

Sam shook his head, but decided to let Dean have the last word. They could go on like this all day, and it wouldn't be the first time. It also wouldn't accomplish anything. Sam turned on the radio and switched it to a station he liked.

"Aw, come on," Dean groaned, reaching to turn it back to his default.

"Ah, ah, ah!"

Sam slapped Dean's hand away playfully.

"Who picks the music?" he demanded with a grin.

"Sam-"

"Who?"

"The driver," Dean sighed, cornered by his own words.

"And you, shotgun, do what?"

Dean rolled his eyes and refused to reply, so Sam turned up the volume and drove on victoriously.

* * *

_"Grandma?"_

_It took Grace Smith a long time to answer her youngest granddaughter. She sat staring deep into the crackling fire at the center of their small campsite. Lost in thought, or perhaps memories. Alice, all of six years old, had no way of knowing._

_"Yes Alice?" she finally replied._

_"I like Allison's new knife."_

_"That's nice."_

_"She let me hold it."_

_"Mmm."_

_"When can I have a knife, Grandma?"_

_"You have your pocket knives, don't you?"_

_"But I want one like Allison has."_

_"Mmm."_

_"I saw one that looked like hers in the store. When can I get one?"_

_"You can't buy a knife like Allison's," Grace explained. "That's not the way we do things in this family."_

_"Then how do we do it?"_

_"We aren't named Smiths for nothing, Alice. When you're a little older, I'll teach you how to forge your own knife. That's the way we do things."_

_Alice frowned._

_"That sounds hard."_

_"The right way usually is."_

_Alice opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again. Young as she was, she still knew better than to argue with her grandmother._

_"Oh. Ok."_

The memory assaulted Alice unexpectedly as she approached the Smith compound. She pushed it away. She never reminisced. The only good memories she had were old ones, faded and distorted by the passage of time. Revisiting them felt strange, like watching someone else's life from a very great distance.

Sam and Dean's descriptions of the place proved faithful. When they described the formidable wall surrounding the settlement, Alice had assumed they were over exaggerating, but it was every bit as imposing as they promised. The sight of the veritable fortress sent a chill down her spine. On her way, she had been filled with doubts of all shades. Were these Smiths really related to her? Were they hunters? Were they anything like her grandmother?

The sight of the wall swept away every shred of doubt she had. Whatever else these people were, they were definitely Smiths. She could feel it deep down in her soul.

The only question left was how would they receive her? Would they take her in as a long lost daughter, or shun her as the monster she had become?

Alice had debated the entire way there how she would approach them. Her first instinct was to come to them with complete transparency, knock on the front door so to speak, and deal with the punches as they came. Now that she was here, she was tempted to sneak around a little, learn more about them before barging in blind. Alice didn't suffer from indecision often, but now she found herself frozen in her truck, about twenty feet down the road from the massive front gates.

"What to do?" she muttered to herself. "What to do?"

Shockingly, she felt nerves fluttering like butterflies through her intestines. She realized with a start that she wanted these people to accept her. She wanted desperately for them to be the family her Grandmother had always described to her, encouraged her and Allison to be. The Smiths that stuck together no matter what. Uncompromising, loyal, adaptable and self-reliant.

Alice shook her head to clear it of the dream that was forming completely against her wishes. She reminded herself of the doubts and questions that still lingered. These may be real Smiths, but why had her grandmother never so much as mentioned them?

As much as she felt that this was the right place, the right people, she also felt that something must be off. Her life never went according to plan. Something always had to be wrong.

Alice sat debating with herself for so long that another truck pulled up behind her. The road was narrow enough this far from the gate that they couldn't get past her. She had run out of time to consider her next move. She shifted into drive and pulled up until the road widened enough for the second truck to pull ahead of her. It did so slowly, the driver giving Alice a long look as he passed her. She looked right back at him. He was in his forties, dark blonde hair graying in places. Hazel eyes locked with hers and Alice could feel him sizing her up. Her attention was drawn away from his intense gaze by three bright slashes of red on his forearm, resting at the nine o'clock position on the steering wheel. Torxing marks? Perhaps, but he was out of sight before Alice could get a close enough look to tell.

"No sneaking," she finally decided as the gates opened for the other truck.

It disappeared into the compound and Alice pulled forward carefully, leaving plenty of room for the gates to close in from of her. She needed to walk on eggshells. If she spooked these people it could be disastrous.

Just inside the gates stood a pair of guardhouses. A man in sunglasses stepped from the one on the right and walked out to meet Alice.

"Good evening," he greeted her. "Can I help you?"

"I hope so. I heard I can find the Smith family here," Alice replied.

"Who's looking?"

"Alice Smith."

"Uh-huh."

The man pulled his sunglasses down to meet her eyes. His were deep blue.

"See, thing is, I know Alice Smith," the man explained. "You ain't her. So I'll ask again. Who are you, and what's your business here?"

"Look, that's my name," Alice insisted. "I'm obviously not the Alice you're thinking of. But my name _is_ Alice Smith, and I've come here for help."

The man considered her for a long moment.

"Got some ID?" he finally asked.

Alice chewed her lip anxiously.

"No," she confessed. All her documentation had disappeared when she died, not that she ever had much to start with. You could get by surprisingly well in life with a few fake driver's licences.

"Nothing? Not even the basics? Birth certificate, social security card, anything?"

"Not for a while, no."

The man grinned at her and pushed his sunglasses back up his nose.

"Maybe you're not lying after all," he said. Alice was puzzled at first, but quickly realized that it made sense. The life of a hunter didn't lend itself to legal legitimacy.

"There's a guest entrance. Go west, you can't miss it. I'll let them know you're coming. If you're for real, there's people in here with ways of telling."

He started walking back to his guard house.

"Wait!" Alice stopped him. "There're things you should know about me before I come in. I don't mean any harm, but I've got some... abnormalities. I don't want to startle anyone."

"Tell it to the guys at guestgate," the man said shortly. He passed through the wall and the gates swung shut behind him, surprisingly quiet for their size.

* * *

Dean warned Bobby over the phone that their situation had grown dire, but nothing that was said prepared him for the sight of the boys and the mauled car they rode in on.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" he shook his head at them. "You're damn lucky your Father isn't around to see his car in this shape. What the hell happened? I thought you said there were demons after you."

"Yeah. They did this," Dean said, scowling at the claw marks that ripped down the sides of his baby.

"What were they possessing, mountain lions?" Bobby demanded.

"No, humans. They had hell hounds with them," Sam explained.

Bobby's frown deepened.

"Hell hounds? Boy, don't you have three weeks left before your contract is up?"

"I'm supposed to. I guess Lilith isn't sweating the fine print," Dean said. He and Sam followed Bobby into the house. It was as cluttered as ever, if not more. Much of the dust had been disturbed. It seemed Bobby had been digging through his collection of archaic lore.

"That doesn't sound right," Bobby mused, leading them into the kitchen. He passed out beers. "These deals are supposed to be airtight. People have been trying to cheat demons for centuries, and you'd better believe the demons try the same sneaky routine behind the scenes. It shouldn't be possible for the demon holding your contract to put a hit out on you, no matter how much of a big shot they are."

"She must have found a loophole," Dean insisted.

"I guess it's possible."

"Well what do you think's going on?" Dean asked. He could tell from Bobby's tone that he wasn't convinced.

"Have you considered that maybe this Lilith isn't really the demon holding your contract?" Bobby asked.

That gave Sam pause and confused Dean.

"You think Parsifal lied?" Sam asked.

"Heck if I know. I wasn't there," Bobby pointed out, his gaze settling on Dean.

"Alice was the one who got the information out of him," Dean said uncomfortably. He hadn't told Sam everything that happened at Parsifal's apartment. "You know how she is with promises."

"Right," Sam nodded. "If she made him promise, there's no two ways about it. The information's good."

Bobby fixed them with a look of bemused incredulity.

"Oh, of course," he said, tone heavy with sarcasm. "Because demons keep all their promises. What, did your friend make him pinky swear?"

"Alice has a... a thing with promises," Dean tried to explain. "You can't break a promise to her."

"She bargained for the ability with a trickster," Sam explained more successfully. "If she made this demon promise not to lie, I guarantee he didn't."

"You kids these days and your friggin' devil deals," Bobby groaned. "Do me a favor, and the next time someone sells themselves, see if the demon, trickster, fairy godmother, or _whatever_ is willing to throw some brains in for free. Idjits."

Neither Winchester had a come back.

"Well, nothing for it now but to push through to the other side," Bobby sighed. He polished off his beer, grabbed another, and headed out of the kitchen. "Time to dig in. I've got a sitting room full of books that aren't going to read themselves."

* * *

Alice found the guest entrance and approached it with trepidation. This whole place made her uneasy. It went deeper than her misgivings about the reception she would get from her relatives. The door ahead of her was solid iron, and she felt that she was being watched. She couldn't touch it to knock, so she pulled out a pocket knife and tapped the handle three times against the door.

At once, a slot opened a few inches above Alice's head. She looked up and found a pair of bright green eyes peering out at her. They seemed to glow at first, but the effect quickly vanished and Alice assumed it was a trick of the light.

"Hi," she greeted the eyes. They offered no response, not even a blink so she went on. "My name is Alice Smith. A guy at the front gate sent me back here. "

A tray slid toward her, and she jumped back to avoid touching it.

"Weapons," came a man's voice.

Alice put her pocket knife on the tray and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You're kidding me, right?" the man asked.

"I come in peace," she explained, putting her hands up in a gesture of innocence. Truth be told, weapons were convenient, but anyone with Alice's training was a weapon in their own right. All her knives and guns were in the car. With any luck, she wouldn't need them or her extensive training.

"Right. Sid said you mentioned something about abnormalities. Care to elaborate?"

"Well, I've had a rough go of it," Alice started awkwardly. "I, uh... well, no two ways about it, I was dead for a while."

"You must be a hunter."

"Yeah."

"It's a rough line of work we're in. You'd be surprised how many people I know who've died and been resurrected at some point. Is that all?"

"No. I didn't get resurrected, per se. I escaped the afterlife on my own, so I fall into the ghost category."

"You look awfully corporeal for a ghost."

"I'm possessing a shape shifter."

"Wow. That's a new one."

"Yeah. So, does any of that get me put on the no fly list?"

"Good question. You wait here and I'll find out."

The slot snapped shut before Alice could protest.

"My knife," she pouted quietly. If he didn't come back, or came back in a less friendly mood, chances were that she wouldn't get it back.

Nothing she could do about it now but wait. She tried to lean against the wall, but jerked away quickly. The concrete was laced with salt that was undetectable to the naked eye, but she felt it like an electric shock the minute she made contact. The influence of the binding link was the only thing that kept her from being forced out of Danny's body. His consciousness stirred from it's torpid, imprisoned state excitedly, only to fall back into the shadows again in disappointment.

 _Someday,_ he promised menacingly, _You'll make a mistake. I'm waiting._

 _Keep waiting,_ Alice shot back. _It's gonna be a while._

With no other options, she stood statuesque before the iron door, forced to do some waiting of her own. Her only movement was the occasional flick of her eyes to the watch on her wrist.

Ten minutes passed and she forced herself to ignore the anxiety building within her. What was happening in there? Was it possible they had forgotten about her? Or was it something more sinister? Were they in there deciding what the most efficient way to kill her was?

She forced herself to stop thinking about it.

After twenty minutes she started to get stiff and broke her cross-armed pose to stretch quickly.

After thirty, she was certain that the man at the door was never going to come back. Of course they didn't want her here. It was stupid of her even to come.

Still, Alice couldn't bring herself to walk away.

Finally, her stubborn perseverance paid off. After nearly forty minutes, the door opened and an old lady stepped out, flanked by a girl and a boy. The girl must have been in her early twenties and the boy couldn't have been much older. Alice met his green eyes and recognized them as the same that had studied her from the slot in the iron door. The older woman leading them looked like she was pushing seventy, but she seemed anything but frail. Her frame was sturdy and athletic, muscles visible beneath wrinkled, spotted skin. She reminded Alice so strongly of her grandmother that she had to look again to confirm that it wasn't Grace Smith come back to the living world.

"Alice Smith?" the old woman asked.

"That's me," Alice replied.

"I'll be the judge of that," she shot back briskly. She stayed within a few steps of the door, keeping her distance from Alice. "Who were your parents?"

"Carol Smith and Lewis Wright," Alice replied. "I never knew them, though. They died when I was little."

"How little?"

"One."

"And your sister?"

"Allison?"

"That's right. She raised you?"

"No. She was only eleven when it happened. My grandma raised us. Grace Smith."

"Tell me something about her."

"Uh..."

Alice's mind went treacherously blank. She had expected questions, but not like this. This woman was interrogating her, no doubt in an attempt to confirm her identity. This was definitely an unorthodox line of questioning to pursue if that was truly her intention, and it made Alice wonder how she could know whether she was answering truthfully. Had this old woman been keeping tabs on her life from afar?

"Well she was strict," Alice said quickly. She was afraid too long of a pause would hurt her chances of being believed. "Uncompromising. Strong. She was the best hunter I ever knew. The best person, really."

"And her knife?"

Alice was caught off guard and it took her a moment to decide how to reply.

"She had a lot of them," she started.

The woman shook her head and turned back toward the door.

"Wait!" Alice called desperately. "One of them was gold!"

The woman paused and Alice seized the moment.

"It was special. The first one she ever made. It had an enchantment. With blood, it burned. She always had it with her, until... until she died. Then she passed it to me."

The woman turned back to Alice, her expression changed. The suspicion was gone, replaced with mix of melancholy and surprise.

"I'd like to see it," she said. Her tone was different too. Softer, the coldness gone, though caution remained.

"I... I lost it," Alice confessed. "A long time ago."

"When precisely?"

"December. 1997. I lost a lot that year."

"Including your life?"

Alice nodded.

The woman sighed heavily.

"I've wanted to know for a long time exactly what happened to my sister," she said. "Your grandmother, I suppose. Why don't you follow me? We have a lot to talk about."

She walked through the door and Alice hesitated before following her. She could feel the eyes of the girl who flanked the old woman following her, narrowed and hostile.

"Grandma never told me she had a sister," Alice said. She had many questions of her own. Maybe now she would finally get some answers.

"It's been a very long time since Grace and I were on speaking terms," the old woman said by way of explanation. "I'm sure you won't mind if Kaydie searches you."

"Not at all," Alice said. She allowed the girl, Kaydie, to pat her down thoroughly.

"What's your name?" she asked the old woman. Her great aunt, she supposed.

"Greta," she replied. "Tell me, Alice. Why did you come here?"

Her piercing blue eyes bore deep into Alice's, demanding truth. Alice started to tell her that she was there for help, but the words caught in her throat. She wanted to tell Greta that she had been alone for so, so very long. That though she had found friends on her journey, she still longed for something more. For belonging. For family.

Instead, she swallowed hard and composed herself.

"Curiosity," she mumbled, dizziness sweeping over her like a wave crashing against the shore.

Alice recognized the sensation. It was a truth spell. Allison used to use small enchantments like it on her when they were younger. This one was powerful, and though she had managed to resist it this time, she had done so somewhat poorly.

"Magic?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

Greta smiled in approval.

"Clever girl," she praised Alice. "Do you dabble in the arts?"

"Not much," Alice admitted. "But I've known enough people who do."

The pieces of the puzzle began to reveal themselves. Her grandmother had always been infuriated by Allison's obsession with witchcraft, even with it's practical uses for hunting. She had 'old-fashioned' ways that she liked to do things. Blessings and prayers, the occasional herb, crystal or occult object. The line between the mystic arts that comprised an exorcism and those that went into a spell always seemed terribly blurry to Alice, but not so to her grandmother. She always knew where the line was and stayed miles away from it at all times.

If these Smiths weren't so strict with their methods, it would explain why her grandmother cut ties with them.

"Are you a witch?" Alice asked.

"No," Greta said. "The occasional use of a witches tricks does not a witch make."

"Is that opinion why you and my grandma stopped speaking?" Alice asked.

Greta's expression betrayed great pain, but only for a second. She was quick to hide her feelings, to tailor her expression into a mask of strength and calm.

"You and I have a lot to talk about," she said. "We should do it somewhere more comfortable."

* * *

Dean finished scanning through the first tome Bobby placed in front of him and set it aside softly. His eyes burned after only a few hours of reading. The veritable mountain of books that still sat at his right was intimidating and he wasn't sure he could bear to tackle it completely sober. He made his way past Sam and Bobby, each engrossed in their own books.

"Beer?" he asked in passing.

"I'm good," Bobby sighed.

"Sure, I'll take one," Sam said. He got up when Dean did, making a beeline for the bathroom.

"Lightweights," Bobby muttered. He stayed put, turning another page.

Once Sam was alone, he pulled out his phone. It had been on silent for a while now because Ruby kept calling him and leaving messages.

 _I know Lilith sent the hounds after you,_ her latest text read. _Just let me know if you're ok._

Sam deleted the messages and pocketed his phone. He was still trying to decide what to do with Ruby. He was playing with the beginnings of a plan, but they were only wisps and flickers of ideas. Inklings. Nothing actionable.

He wouldn't contact Ruby again until he knew what he wanted to do.

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Dean checked his phone as well. Where Sam was plagued by more messages than he wanted, Dean had too few. The last time he'd heard from Alice, she was turning in for the night in a West Memphis motel. Now, eighteen hours later, he didn't have so much as a text from her.

He decided to send one of his own.

_How's it going?_

He leaned against the counter, sipping his beer and watching his phone. Five minutes and nothing. The radio silence disturbed Dean, but there was nothing he could do but wait.

He headed back to the sitting room, setting Sam's beer down on the couch he had been sitting on only moments earlier.

"There has to be a better way to do this," he grumbled, settling back in at the desk.

"You could switch from beer to coffee," Bobby suggested. "Aside from that, there's not much for it. Sam exhausted the internet archives of lore months ago, which is pretty god-damned impressive if you ask me. These books are as obscure as it gets. Some of them are centuries old. If the rituals we need aren't here, I've got no idea where else to look."

"Right."

Bobby regarded him over the pages of his book for a moment before he spoke again.

"So, I've been meaning to ask about this Smith character I keep hearing so much about," he began. "I don't suppose she's the same one you were looking for a few years back?"

"The very same."

"I thought that girl turned out to be dead. Bad information?"

"No. It's complicated."

"Is anything in your life uncomplicated?"

Dean sighed wearily.

"These days... it doesn't seem like it."

"So what's the deal with you two, if you don't mind me asking?"

"What do you mean?"

"You and Alice Smith. Way Sam tells it, you two are getting pretty close."

"Well... that's the deal," Dean replied. "Not much more to be said."

"If you say so."

Bobby pointedly buried his nose in his book again, but Dean could tell he had more to say.

"What's that supposed to mean, 'if I say so'?" Dean demanded.

"Nothing. Just..."

Bobby thought for a minute.

"Just be careful, okay Dean? Romance and this lifestyle don't exactly mix."

"You can say that again," Dean snorted.

"What I mean is... look, the way you are with your brother is already bad enough," Bobby went on.

"What way-"

"Oh please! You know. All the self-righteous self-sacrificing horsecrap I constantly have to hear about after the fact. Don't get sloppy because there's a woman in your life now. Or sloppier, I guess."

"Alice can take care of herself," Dean pointed out. "She'd probably be pissed if she caught me sacrificing anything for her."

"Firecracker type?"

"More like C4."

"Sounds fun."

"Oh yeah."

"What's fun?" Sam asked, returning to the room and interrupting them.

"Oh, all this research of course," Dean said sarcastically.

"Well, savor it," Sam sighed. "It's only going to be fun for a few more hours. Then the headaches are going to set in... watery eyes, fatigue-"

He sat on the couch, but sprang back up immediately with a yelp. Dean burst out laughing as Sam grabbed the freezing beer from the cushions, rolling his eyes at his brother's mild prank.

"Yeah, hilarious," he snapped.

Bobby chuckled quietly from behind a book.

"If you two spent half as much time reading as you do messing with each other, we'd have found a useful ritual by now," he scoffed.

They all settled in again, Dean starting his second book. Before he opened it, he took a final look at his phone.

Still no word from Alice.


	27. Bonds of Blood

Alice sat across a low coffee table from Greta, peering into a cup of tea Kaydie had handed her moments earlier. Kaydie was Greta's granddaughter, Alice's cousin. In her short time with the Smiths, less than an hour, Alice learned that Kaydie was being groomed to take over the family. The weight of her responsibilities showed in the dark circles under her eyes and the permanent scowl she wore. She was hesitant to leave Alice alone with Greta, but did as she was told nonetheless.

Alice cradled the cup and inspected it's searing amber contents, but didn't lift it to her lips. Across from her, Greta took a long drink from hers, not seeming to mind the thick steam rising from the fresh brew.

"You don't trust me enough to drink my tea?" Greta asked. It was hard for Alice to decipher her expression. Her eyes were fox-like, sly and calculating. The rest of her face gave away little.

"Would you, if the tables were turned?" Alice replied.

"I suppose not."

Despite the exchange, Alice sipped the tea. It was mild, though slightly bitter.

"I have to admit, I'm surprised Kaydie didn't turn up any weapons when she searched you," Greta said. "I know Grace valued good faith, but I also know she would never have put it over caution."

"Sometimes caution can be mistaken for hostility," Alice explained. "I didn't want to take that chance."

"You're very concerned with appearances."

"No. I'm very concerned about being killed on sight by cloistered, paranoid hunters."

"Is that what we are now?" Greta laughed.

"Depends who you ask."

"And who have you been asking?"

"Other hunters."

"Let me guess. Winchesters."

"Good guess. For someone I first heard about a week ago and am only just now meeting, you're awfully familiar with the people I associate with," Alice observed, her tone heavy with implication.

"That was an educated guess, my dear. The Winchesters came here looking for you about a year ago. As concerned about you as they were, it's obvious that you were close with them. It's no stretch to assume you would have sought them out after making it back to this mortal plane, just as they sought you. "

"So you haven't been watching me?"

"Of course not. The dead don't typically require much supervision."

"And before I died?"

"Well... Grace knew how to disappear," Greta said simply. "It's not surprising she passed that knowledge on to you."

"So it's true. You were looking for me around the time I died."

"Yes. To be completely honest with you, we were looking for you for quite a while before that as well."

"Why?"

Greta sighed heavily and set her tea down.

"It's complicated. To understand, you need the context of our family's background. I doubt Grace told you much about us, given the circumstances."

"So you tell me then."

"It's not a long story. We've hunted the evil things that plague this Earth for nearly a thousand years. For most of that time, we did so with help from above."

"Right. All the blessings, the grace of God and all that jazz," Alice sighed. She was familiar with the rites and methods. They hadn't worked for her in quite a while, since she had strayed from the righteous path her grandmother intended her and Allison to tread.

"That, and more," Greta went on. "Our family is one of few rare bloodlines left in the world that can serve as angelic hosts. The angels used to fight alongside us to maintain order and keep darkness from spreading too far."

Alice shivered, involuntary recollections of her time as Anna's host assaulting her. Anna had been assigned to guide the three temporally displaced Smiths as they attempted to return to the time they originated from. Alice had been in control of her body the majority of the time, but the few times Anna had taken over completely were traumatic, to say the least.

"That all came to an end toward the close of the nineteenth century," Greta continued. "Without warning, the angels left us. For a time, they still offered assistance in limited forms, but by the time Grace and I were leading this family, no one had heard from Heaven in over a decade."

Foreboding crept over Alice. The timeline Greta was describing aligned suspiciously with a mistake Alice had talked Anna into making. Together, they had made a terrible discovery that turned Alice into a fugitive from Heaven and left Anna in a precarious position with her superiors.

"The blessings, the grace of God and 'all that jazz', as you put it, were becoming less and less effective. It fell to Grace and I to find new methods of hunting, new ways to fight the demons alone... "

She trailed off, her expression distant as if she were reliving that period of her life. She was silent for so long that Alice nearly asked if she was alright. Finally, she spoke again.

"I accepted a long time ago that without the angels, the only way we could fight fire was with fire. Witchcraft with witchcraft, monstrosities with monstrosities. Grace never accepted that. She thought I was leading this family down a path that would make us no better than the things we were hunting. She was the only one who thought that. The rest of us couldn't be swayed. In the end, Grace left with her daughter. Your mother.

"I... I couldn't let her go in peace. I tried to stop her, tried one last time to convince her that what we were doing was right. That it was for the greater good. We had a terrible fight, and... I never saw her again."

The pain in Greta's expression was unbearable and resonated deeply with Alice. A horrible memory pushed it's way through her many walls and emotional barriers, bubbling to the surface unstoppably.

_"This is... wrong! Oh my God... What have I done?"_

_"What you wanted... right?"_

_"No! This isn't right! This isn't what I wanted!"_

_"Allison, what-"_

_"How could you let me do this?! When Grandma finds out..."_

_"She won't!"_

_"HOW?! All this blood..."_

_"Allison, please, just-"_

_"No! Get away from me! Just leave me alone!"_

"The last time I saw my sister, we had a fight," Alice said softly. "We had just done something terrible. Forged a weapon. It was her idea, but she never would have gone through with it if I hadn't egged her on. And after... she couldn't bear what we'd done."

"She sounds a lot like Grace," Greta observed.

"I think she was. She tried not to be. She spent a lot of her life mad at grandma for something that happened with our parents... she would never tell me what. It was funny, because I was always the one _trying_ to be like grandma, but I always fell short."

"Well, that may not have been such a bad thing. Grace was... an idealist," Greta said. "It was a beautiful thing, the way she tried to live, but unfortunately, the world is an ugly place. Beautiful things don't last long here."

Greta's words echoed a sentiment Alice had never dared give voice to. She idolized her grandmother, but deep down, she also had a hard time understanding the woman.

"You're saying she was impractical."

"In some ways. I don't mean anything by it. Grace was one of the last true saints this world will ever see. It's just..."

"Saints aren't cut out for dirty work."

"Exactly. And there's a lot of dirty work to be done when you're a hunter."

Alice realized they had become quite sidetracked.

"Thanks for the lesson in family history. I mean that sincerely... but what does it have to do with you looking for me?" Alice asked, steering the conversation away from it's intensely emotional thread. She had only just met this woman and she was discussing things she'd spent a lifetime trying not to dwell on. She felt exposed, vulnerable.

"Not you, so much as your grandmother. I was regretful. I wanted to make amends, apologize at the very least. But when I finally went looking, all I found was a corpse in a Boston morgue. After that, I spend a long time trying to track down you and Allison, but... you were like a pair of ghosts. Alice..."

Greta reached for her hand. Her light blue eyes were wide and wet, imploring.

"Alice, tell me what happened to Grace," she plead. "Tell me how she died."'

Alice swallowed hard, numbness creeping over her. She didn't want to revisit that memory. Not today. Not ever.

"It's... complicated," she began. She tried to organize her thoughts, preparing to regale Greta with their time travelling misadventures, but stopped herself. "No, actually. It's not really that complicated. There was a demon. She... she knew us. Enough to know where our anti-possession tattoos were. She broke grandmas and took her body. She was trying to kill me, and I... I had a weapon that could kill a demon. I tried to use it, but... but..."

Alice lost herself to the memory. She did so unwillingly. Greta's grip was firm on her hand, and she could feel the old woman watching the scene with her as it began to unfold.

"No," Alice mumbled through a haze. "I don't... want..."

"Please, child," Greta begged. "I need to see what happened. Show me, please."

Alice could have continued to fight Greta's magic. She probably could have evicted her grand aunt from her mind. Instead, she gave in and let the memory take her.

_Alice slipped into the hotel room as quietly as she could. She knew she wouldn't get away with her excursion, but she felt she had to try._

_"Alice. Is that you?" came her grandmother's voice from somewhere within the darkness._

_The strange question made Alice frown._

_"Yes," she said sheepishly, steeling herself for a reprimand and a stream of questions. Where had she been, what had she been doing, why? Of course, she had prepared lies. There was no way she could tell her grandmother what she and Allison had done. There was also no way it would stay a secret forever, but at ten years old, Alice was far from wise enough to realize that. She lived day to day, mistake to mistake, rolling with the punches and dealing with the consequences as they came._

_"Are those tears I smell?"_

_Alice's frown deepened, and she wiped her eyes on her sleeve quickly. Her tears from the argument with Allison were already dry. And since when did her grandmother smell tears? Something was wrong._

_Alice flipped the light switch. The first thing she saw was a woman on the floor, blood still flowing from her slit throat. Kneeling next to the woman was her grandmother, holding a bloody knife._

_"Grandma?" Alice asked. "What happened?"_

_Her grandmother didn't respond or look away from the body, and Alice inspected her more closely. The sight of a bloody slice in her grandmother's shirt made her breath hitch with fear and dread._

_"Are you ok?!" she demanded, surging forward thoughtlessly. "What-"_

_The minute she was close enough, her grandmother's hand snapped up, grabbing Alice's wrist with inhuman strength. Alice cried out in pain and her grandmother smiled._

_"I'm sorry. Grandma can't come to the phone right now."_

_The thing in her grandma's body finally snapped around to look at her. It's eyes were black as an empty night sky._

_"No!" Alice yelled, feeling panic well up inside her. "Get out of her!"_

_The demon laughed at her._

_"Don't worry, darling, I will soon," it promised. "See, I just got back. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this world, and I can't do that in this withered old husk. Where's your sister?"_

_"What?"_

_The question was strangely personal, strangely specific. Alice immediately figured that this demon must know them._

_"She'd be perfect," the demon mused, it's fingers tightening around Alice's wrist like a vice. She whimpered in pain, struggling to pull away. Her free hand crept behind her, reaching for a flask in her back pocket._

_"How old is she now? Still twenty? She must be. You still look the same."_

_Alice twisted the cap off the flask before she pulled it out, dumping it's contents over the demon's head. It screeched and leapt back in agony, steam rising around it as the holy water reacted to it's presence._

_"Exorcizamus te, omnus immundus spiritus," Alice recited, her voice shaking._

_Snarling, the demon flung Alice off her feet with a wave of it's hand._

_"Oh no," it purred, creeping closer as Alice groaned on the floor. Her ribs hurt and her vision was blurry, but she fought through the pain. "I've been waiting for this for too long. The years can't be numbered. And the whole time, all I did was think about you, Alice. Think about what I was going to do to you the next time I saw you! Of course, I always thought that when we crossed paths again it would be in hell..."_

_Alice didn't care how this demon knew her. She needed to get it out of her grandma. Desperate, she reached into her jacket and pulled out the knife she and Allison had just created._

_"Let her go, right now!" Alice screamed, brandishing the knife as she struggled to her feet._

_The sight of it stopped the demon, who gaped at it in disbelief._

_"It can't be!" it gasped. "I never got the chance to make it... how..."_

_The disbelief turned to rage as the demon connected dots that were invisible to Alice._

_"So it's not enough to take my life," the demon sneered. "You brats had to take my life's work too."_

_"Get out of her right now!" Alice commanded. Her voice was strong, even though she was terrified._

_"You won't stab your grandmother," the demon said, but it didn't sound or look sure._

_"She would want me to," Alice said. Her voice broke and it was all she could do to keep from sobbing._

_The demon stared her down for a moment that stretched into agonizing eternity, before erupting in laughter._

_"Silly girl," it sneered. "This isn't over. I'll see you soon. Have fun with what's left of your precious grandmother."_

_It smoked out violently, circling the room once before shattering the window and streaking away into the night._

_"Grandma!"_

_Grace fell to the ground, and Alice rushed to her side._

_"Grandma!"_

_"Alice..."_

_She sounded so weak. Alice had never heard her grandmother sound weak. Blood poured from her stomach, and Alice pressed the wound desperately. She couldn't stem the flow of blood, no matter how she tried. The demon had put a knife through her anti-possession tattoo so it could take control of her body, and it's presence had been the only thing keeping her alive._

_"Alice, listen to me," Grace said. She sounded stronger this time, though strained. "Listen... that demon..."_

_She coughed, but gathered her strength and went on._

_"It's going after Allison. It wants to hurt you. Both of you. Alice, don't let it... don't..."_

_"It's ok," Alice said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "It's ok, I'll take care of it. Don't worry. Everything's going to be ok. You're going to be ok, right?"_

_"No, Alice. Not this time."_

_The soft reply wrenched a ragged sob from Alice._

_"You need to be strong. Take care of your sister. Don't let her... she's... on a dark path. Don't let her go down it."_

_"I won't."_

_"You have to take care of each other now. Promise me, Alice."_

_"I promise, Grandma. I'll take care of her. I promise."_

_"Oh, Alice," Grace sighed. A single tear fell from her eyes as they closed. "I'm so... proud, of you. So... proud..."_

Alice's vision began to blur. Her grandmother's last words haunted her to this day. If only Grace had known what Alice had done only hours earlier. The atrocity she had committed in the name of the greater good. If she knew, she would have had something very different to say as she lay dying, Alice was certain of it.

She stood abruptly as the memory dissolved, wrenching her hand from Greta's grasp. She turned her back to her great aunt and took a few deep breaths, composing herself.

 _Now I remember why I stopped doing emotions,_ she thought glumly. She felt terrible, faint and a little bit dizzy. It was hard to breathe past the lump in her throat and the knot in her guts, but she forced herself to keep inhaling and exhaling steadily. After a minute, her heartbeat slowed and her vision came back into focus.

"I'm sorry," Greta apologized somberly. "I know how hard that must have been for you."

"I'm fine," Alice said, turning back to her. "It's just been a long week. This is... it's all just a lot."

"I understand. Why don't you rest? I have a guest room here in my home I reserve for special visitors. In the morning, I'll make breakfast, and you can tell me more about why you're here. You'll forgive me, but I find it hard to believe that curiosity is the only thing that motivated you to seek us out."

Alice wondered how much insight Greta had into her character after digging around in her head like that. On it's own, the memory she had dug up was incredibly revealing. What else had she glimpsed while coaxing it to the surface?

Alice was too bone tired to linger on those questions for long. Unlike the Winchesters, she had not stopped in a motel after her battle with the hell hounds. She had driven straight, stopping to clean up in restrooms along the way.

"That sounds really nice," Alice agreed. "And you're right. I did come here for help. Among other things."

"We'll talk about it in the morning. If you're hungry, I can have food brought to you," Greta offered.

"I'd like that," Alice replied. She'd eaten nothing but chips and slim jims for the past two days.

Greta showed her down a hall to the guest room in question. It was small, but well maintained and charmingly decorated. It's auburn and cream color scheme matched the rest of the house, creating a feeling of warmth. Coziness, even. Alice immediately noted the room's lack of windows, a structural choice which struck her as odd.

After Greta bid her good night, Alice sat on the edge of the low bed and pulled her phone from her pocket. No new texts. It concerned her at first, but she quickly realized it was because she had no service. With a frown, she switched to wifi calling. She wanted to make sure Dean was alright, wanted to tell him that she was fine. That things were going well so far.

There were several wifi networks to choose from, but they were all secured, and she had the password to none of them. Not a problem, she assumed. She slipped from her room and made her way down the short hall back into the living room. The door to the kitchen was ajar and as Alice approached, she heard hushed voices from behind it. With a frown, she edged closer, straining to make out what was being said.

"... can't believe she's still awake."

The whisperer was Kaydie, if Alice wasn't mistaken.

"She's really one of us," Greta sighed softly. "A Smith through and through. It's a shame really..."

"You don't have to go through with this, you know."

"I know. But it's a small sacrifice. One stranger for the return of this entire family to grace..."

Alice's blood ran cold. She froze in place, hardly daring to breathe as she continued to eavesdrop.

"But is it really necessary? We've been hunting without the angels for so long. Most of us have never even seen one."

"That's why I have to do this. This job is so dangerous... just this year, think of everyone we've lost. Now imagine having them all back. Imagine hunting for the rest of your life, and living to be my age. Without the support of Heaven, the odds of that happening are one in a million. I'm doing this for you, Kaydie. For all our brothers and sisters."

"I understand. And... she is a stranger, after all."

"Yes. Yes, she is. Now here. Bring this to her. I tripled the dose."

"Tripled?!" Kaydie's voice rose, before she quickly quieted herself. "That's too much! You'll kill her!"

"The tea barely fazed her and she's too aware of my magic for it to be any use. If Heaven wants her so badly, they can bring her back if she's dead when they get here."

Alice grit her teeth, rage coursing through her. She clenched her hands into fists, fighting the desire to burst into the kitchen and throttle the lying, scheming old woman she had just opened up to. Instead, she dashed silently back to her room. Once there, she leaned against the door and shut her eyes, trying to process what she had just heard.

Greta knew it was her fault the Angels had abandoned the Smiths. How she had found out, Alice couldn't say. Maybe the Angels told her. Maybe that was the entire reason she had come looking for Alice and her family to begin with. Who knew. The details weren't important right now. What was important was that Greta was obviously planning to turn her in to Heaven.

Alice needed to get out of here. She couldn't fight her way out. On her way to Greta's house, she had gotten a good look at the compound. There were too many Smiths here, no doubt with the same training she had. Doubtless, Greta wasn't the only one with supernatural powers. She needed to be careful. She needed a plan.

A knock on the door interrupted her panic. She took a moment to slow her breathing, before opening it. Kaydie stood before her, holding a tray that contained a bowl of soup, crackers, and a glass of milk. Alice seethed at the sight of her and her small, friendly smile, but she carefully hid her malice. She smiled back tightly and opened the door wider so Kaydie could come in. She stepped past Alice to set the tray down on the nightstand.

"So, Kaydie," Alice asked, closing the door quietly. "You've been a hunter your whole life?"

"Uh-huh," Kaydie replied. "We start young. What about you?"

"Oh, yeah. It's all I've ever known. Rough life."

"I've heard life is rough no matter how you live it," Kaydie observed, smiling wryly.

"Yeah. That's true. Especially when you're going it alone though. You know. When no one has your back and you're constantly on the run. It's hard to know who to trust."

"Is that how you've been living?"

"For a long time now, yeah."

"Well. Good thing you found your way here. Home."

Kaydie's expression betrayed no hint of her lies, infuriating Alice unbearably.

"Yeah. Good thing," she replied, hiding her own true feelings.

"See you at breakfast," Kaydie said, starting for the door.

Alice pounced without warning, hitting Kaydie in the gut with all her might. The other hunter doubled over, the wind knocked out of her. Alice's move was intentional. If Kaydie screamed, it was all over. Alice wrestled her into a sleeper hold, pulling her down to the floor as they fought in silence. Kaydie was fierce, but no match for Alice's strength and still reeling from the surprise attack. She clawed at Alice's eyes, and Alice bit back screams of her own as Kaydie's nails dug into the tender flesh of her face. She was fairly sure that she had lost an eye, but she wasn't worried about it. She'd lost plenty of eyes in hell. She could endure one more.

Finally, after what felt like hours of painful struggling, Kaydie lay still in Alice's arms. Alice let her go, rising to her feet as blood streamed down her face. With muffled groans of pain, she stripped her clothes off and began to shift, skin dissolving into slime and falling to the floor with sickening plops. When the process as complete, she wore Kaydie's face. She took her cousins clothes to complete the disguise, and quickly left the room. As she approached the end of the hall, she could see Greta rearranging the living room, making way for a summoning ritual. Alice shuddered, recognizing the Enochian symbols Greta was drawing with coal. She had been right.

"Is she settled?" Greta asked, barely looking up from her spellwork.

"Yes," Alice replied carefully with Kaydie's voice. "She's eating now."

"Good, good. I need lavender, sage and dove tail feathers. Be a dear and fetch them for me from the storehouse."

"Ok."

Alice forced herself to walk away from Greta. There was nothing to stop her from killing the old woman, but she didn't want to risk losing a fight. Kaydie had been more of a challenge than she assumed, and Greta was a more seasoned hunter. Better to walk away now and get even with these people later.

Still, she was seeing red all the way to the guest entrance. She wanted to burn the entire place to the ground. She had come here unarmed with nothing but good intentions, looking for family. All she had found were more enemies, more people out to get her.

Deep down, she realized this was really what she had been expecting. This was why she had been trying so hard to keep her hopes from rising too far. To keep her dreams from running away with her. Reality, as always, was harsh and unmerciful. She had allowed herself to believe that something good might come her way, and all it had gotten her in the end was a more devastating let down.

 _I'll never trust anyone again as long as I live,_ she thought bitterly.

She reached the bunker that sat snug against the enormous concrete wall, and entered without knocking. The man who was apparently on permanent gatekeeper duty sat at a desk, reading an article online. Bored out of his mind, but still alert enough to jump up when he heard the door open. Micheal, if Alice was recalling his name correctly.

"Kaydie," he said, rolling his eyes. "What is it now?"

"Grandma," Alice spat the word out venemously through gritted teeth, "... sent me to search Alice's truck."

Micheal raised an eyebrow suspiciously, but started unlatching the heavy iron door anyway.

"Whatever you say."

He opened his mouth to say something else, but met Alice's eyes and froze in place.

Her eyes.

Alice suddenly remembered her creepy, color changing, trickster touched eyes. No matter how she tried, she was unable to disguise them with any amount of shifting. She stiffened and prepared for a fight, but Micheal just sighed and opened the door for her.

"Good luck," he said. "You know. Finding anything out there."

Alice hesitated, terribly confused. Did he not recognize her eyes? Did they look close enough to Kaydie's to be passable? Was the harsh fluorescent light in this bunker so bad that it hid the shifting colors in her irises?

Rather than waste time trying to answer these questions, Alice instead walked past him as calmly as she could.

"Oh, hang on," he stopped her, quickly opening one of the lockers. She turned back to see him holding out the pocket knife she had given him upon her arrival.

"Don't forget this," he said, holding her gaze firmly. His green eyes sparkled something that reminded Alice of a trickster's eyes. Like knowing amusement. In that instant, she was sure that he knew exactly what was going on. For some reason, he wasn't stopping it.

"Thank you," Alice said slowly, taking the knife. "I guess."

He winked at her and shut the door without saying another word.

Alice dashed to her truck, started it quickly and peeled out out of the guest parking lot as fast as she could go. She tore away from the Smith compound without looking back. Even after she made it to the highway, she kept speeding away at nearly a hundred and twenty miles an hour. She wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and the Smiths that were so eager to sell her out.

After a few minutes of driving, her phone started going off, catching up with all the message notifications she had missed while she was out of service in the Smith compound. She slowed down to sixty so she could take a look. They were all texts from Dean, growing increasingly worried during their short communication blackout.

 _I'm fine,_ she texted back quickly. _My family sucks. I had to make a quick exit. On my way to you now. Tell you all about it when I see you._

She tossed her phone down on the passenger seat and sped up again. Dean's concern was exactly what she needed after the disaster that she had narrowly escaped. So what if her blood relations were dicks? With the exception, maybe, of Micheal Dixon-Smith.

Alice comforted herself with the thought that family didn't end or even necessarily begin with blood. Everything she needed was waiting for her at Bobby Singer's house.

All she had to do was make sure hell didn't steal it from her.


	28. Weak Links

_Blanket of silence makes me want to sink my teeth in deep_

_Burn all the evidence, a fabricated disbelief_

_Pull back the curtains took a look into your eyes_

_My tongue has now become a platform for your lies_

_I said you got me where you want me again and I can't turn away_

_I'm hanging by thread and I'm feelin' like a fool_

_I'm stuck here in-between the shadows of my yesterday_

_I want to get away, I need to get away_

_Now you know, yeah you got my back against the wall_

_Oh god! I ain't got no other place to hide_

_Chained down like a sittin' duck just waitin' for the fall_

_You know, yeah, you got my back against the wall_

**_Cage The Elephant, Back Against The Wall_ **

* * *

Almost every demon crawling the face of the earth was on the lookout for Sam and Dean Winchester. The bounty on their heads was enormous, as if demons needed any more encouragement to track down and slowly torture a pair of hunters to death.

Ruby was one of hundreds, but she had a leg up on her brothers and sisters. She knew the boys in question. She knew their habits, their friends, their methods. While Lilith's demons ran around like bloodthirsty headless chickens, she knew exactly where to start looking.

Bobby Singer's Scrap and Salvage.

She retrieved her car and made the two day drive to her destination. It was slower than teleportation, but the last thing she wanted was for other demons to be able to follow her trail back to the Winchesters. By the time she got there, she still hadn't decided exactly what she wanted to do. Get her knife back, that much was certain. How to go about it was another question entirely. She had made great headway with Sam, possibly even gained his trust for good. Stealing her knife was a dick move, but understandable. If he and Dean were really working with Alice, it would be impossible for Ruby to join them. Even if the goal was to save Alice herself from perdition, the two were mortal enemies. Any encounter between them would always end with one or the other dead.

Ruby wasn't afraid of Alice. She had killed her once. She could easily do it again. Alice had always been at a huge disadvantage in their long-waged war. The knots she had tied herself in with her unbreakable promises made it all but impossible for her to touch a hair on the head Ruby was borrowing from her sister.

Ruby stalked around Bobby Singer's property carefully. She knew from experience that his rough, rural exterior hid intelligence and resourcefulness that made him tricky to deal with. His first experience with the supernatural had been demonic possession, so his home as well warded against Ruby and her ilk. She narrowly avoided three devil's traps and a tripwire as she looked around. The house was incredibly quiet and she didn't see anyone through the windows she managed to peer through. Finally, she caught sight of the Winchesters Impala among the many, many cars on the property. She whistled quietly when she saw it. Someone had really done a number on the paint job. The claw marks pointed to hell hounds as the culprits. Ruby ran a finger over one of the slashes, feeling the energy left behind by the dogs. It made the hairs stand up straight on her arms.

Her detective work was interrupted by a truck that barreled toward Bobby's house like a bat from hell, skidding to a halt in a cloud of reddish dust. Ruby ducked low, peeking up through the windows of a scrapped volkswagen.

The vehicle that had appeared so suddenly was a small black truck. And who was driving, but Ruby's old nemesis. The demon's eyes narrowed to slits as Alice Smith stepped out of the truck, slamming the door behind her and striding toward Bobby's front door.

She really was back. Alive and in the flesh.

Ruby's blood boiled at the sight. All the time and effort she had devoted to killing the bitch the first time, just for her to waltz back from hell... it was an insult.

No matter. Alice wouldn't be with the living for very much longer. Ruby would be sure to see to it.

* * *

Alice didn't have to knock. She texted Dean as she pulled into the scrap yard and he was waiting at the door for her. It opened the minute she set foot on the stoop. The sight of Dean was a huge relief. He looked much the same as the last time she had seen him, albeit somewhat sleep deprived. She all but fell into his embrace with a heavy sigh, letting her eyes slide shut as she felt his warmth.

"You have no idea how glad I am to see you," she groaned.

"Rough trip?"

"Ugh. I haven't slept since... god. It's been a few days now, actually."

"You know that's not really what I was asking about."

"Ugh. Right. _Those people._ "

Dean cocked an eyebrow inquisitively at her choice of words, watching her expectantly.

"I mean... honestly, I wasn't expecting it to go smoothly," Alice sighed. Still, she hadn't been able to stop herself from hoping. She kept that thought to herself.

"What happened?"

"Long, complicated story... they were basically going to literally turn me in for the figurative reward money."

"Turn you in to who? And for what?"

"I'll tell you all about it some other time," Alice groaned.

Dean knew Alice well enough to know that whatever really happened with her family, she would tell him in her own time. Alice carried her baggage close to her chest and the contents of this newly packed suitcase would likely only see the light of day after she had a few drinks in her.

"I'm too tired to get into all that right now," Alice concluded. "How about you? You look like you haven't had a wink in a while either."

"Eh, research," Dean said, giving up for the moment on getting Alice to open up to him. "You know how it is. You wanna head upstairs, get some z's?"

"Actually, I think food is higher on the priority list. What's good around here?"

"We have leftover pizza... poptarts, uh... beer."

"I take it our host isn't the cooking sort."

"Bobby? You'd be surprised. He makes a mean pot pie. We've all had our noses glued to books the past few days."

"Turn up anything interesting?"

"Oh, sure. Did you know there are two kinds of werewolves? Yeah, apparently they can be born that way, not just turned. Interesting stuff. Doesn't help us find Lilith though."

"You sure? Maybe that's the answer. Get a trueborn werewolf, slip him something with her scent on it, and bam."

Dean smiled at the silly suggestion, but he didn't look that amused.

"Sorry. I know it's serious," Alice assured him. "As soon as I get some food and a little more caffeine in my system, I'll dive right into the research with the rest of you."

"Alice, you're kidding, right?" Dean scoffed. "You're dead on your feet. You need to get some sleep."

"Ditto. I'll make you a deal; I'll sleep first, if you do it with me," Alice proposed.

Dean shifted uncomfortably as they made their way through the house.

"Actually, I'm good," he said. "I, uh... I've been having trouble sleeping lately."

Alice knew exactly what he was talking about. She had worked enough cases involving demonic deals to know the symptoms that started popping up in the weeks before a soul was collected.

"You're having nightmares, aren't you?"

"Well..."

"They'll only get worse," she warned him gravely. "The closer you get to the deadline... the more they torment you. Previews of hell, if you will."

"Peachy."

"I know a little spell that can help," Alice said. She bit her lip, reminded of Greta and the magic she used. She pushed the thoughts away violently. Thinking about her relatives filled her with impotent rage that she was too tired to deal with at the moment. "You mentioned your friend Bobby having a lot of 'dead thing parts'. Maybe he has what I need to put it together."

"I'd really appreciate it," Dean said. "I mean, assuming I don't have to drink essence of possum or anything."

"It's not that kind of spell. It's a genuine dreamcatcher," Alice assured him. "I mean, I'll need to sprinkle it with crushed rattlesnake scales, but that's as gross as it gets."

"That's fairly heavy duty hoodoo," came a rough voice from the end of the hall. Alice looked up and got her first look at Bobby Singer. He approached them cautiously, giving Alice a good look over that she returned in kind.

"Not a lot of people have the know-how to work that kind of charm without a demon behind them," he went on, a hint of implication in his tone.

"Well, the few that do have the right know-how can make the ingredients do all the work, as long as they have the right incantation," Alice replied. "You must be 'Uncle' Bobby Singer."

"And you must be the 'complicated' Alice Smith," Bobby replied. He held her gaze for a long, tense moment. Dean watched with bated breath as they both formed first impressions of one another. Sam had told him about the disaster that had been their first encounter in the timeline Loki erased after the mystery spot. He could only hope that this time, things went a little better.

"Not the worst thing I've been called," Alice finally said. She extended her hand and Bobby shook it cautiously. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't throw my last name around though."

"Bad blood?" Bobby guessed.

"The worst."

"That, I understand."

"Is that so?"

"Let's just say I know that family isn't always all it's cracked up to be."

"Mm."

Dean breathed a sigh of relief while rolling his eyes. Sam had apparently been overreacting with his insistence that Alice and Bobby were going to end up stabbing each other. So far they seemed to get along perfectly well. Each was a little suspicious of the other, but they were both paranoid people. Dean was far from surprised by their caution.

"Well, in any case, I'm familiar with the charm you're going for," Bobby said. "Why don't I get the ingredients together. In the meantime, Dean can get you something to eat."

He turned to Dean.

"And for your information, there's not just pizza, poptarts and beer," he chided. Dean frowned, wondering how long Bobby had been eavesdropping from the other room. "I've got canned goods to last through a nuclear apocalypse and it'll hardly hurt my stash to let the lady here have her pick."

"How come me and Sam don't get our pick?" Dean protested.

"Because you idjits'll eat half of it before the week is out if I let you!" Bobby growled.

Alice shrugged.

"He's got you Winchesters and your hollow legs pegged, Dean," she agreed.

"I ought to. I've been dealing with them long enough," Bobby muttered as he walked off.

"She eats more than you think she does," Dean called after him. "Her appetite is twice as big as she is, at least!"

"Dean, food. Charm. Sleep. Fast," Alice said, too exhausted for any more sarcasm.

"Right."

* * *

Ruby spent the remainder of the evening spying on the hunters from a safe distance. She couldn't stop herself from snarling as she watched Alice Smith eat, watched her assemble a dreamcatcher charm, watched her settle down to sleep in Dean Winchester's arms. By rights, she should have been screaming in agony while her skin was peeled off, her exposed flesh singed, her bones crushed until all that remained of her was a smoking, pulpy pile of flesh and marrow. She should be undergoing that process repeated for eternity, not cuddling in the relative safety of a hunter's home, surrounded by friends.

Ruby saw Alice smile as she dozed off. She had never seen her nemesis so content. It was ironic, given the circumstances. Rather then reveling in the presence of her lover, she should have been eaten with anxiety, racing to find a way to keep him from suffering the same terrible fate she had somehow managed to escape. But no. Smith was as selfish and thoughtless as always. As long as the moment felt good for her, she would be perfectly happy and damn the consequences for everyone else.

No matter. Ruby was about to take everything away from Alice Smith, again. This time it would hurt more than ever, because this time, she had something worth losing. Most importantly, this loss would be eternal. Ruby intended to destroy her quarry so thoroughly that there would be no way for her to come back, nothing for her to come back to.

As Ruby waved her hand over the handle of the back door to Singer's house, she found herself having to struggle to complete the motion. The lock clicked open under the pull of her demonic influence, but she had to fight a battle of wills with Allison Smith to put one foot in front of the other to enter the house.

 _You can't stop me,_ Ruby snarled at her.

Allison didn't reply. All her focus was concentrated on desperately attempting to foil Ruby's every move.

Ruby shoved Allison's consciousness back and forged ahead. Once, a long time ago, Allison had managed to overcome Ruby, nearly to the point of exorcising the demon through sheer willpower. It had been within the first week after Ruby was released from hell to roam the earth in servitude to Grinda. She had been inexperienced with possession, unfamiliar with the use of demonic powers.

She had fifteen years of experience under her belt by now. She was stronger by several orders of magnitude, while Allison's psyche had atrophied. She struggled admirable against Ruby, but it was an impossible battle that she was doomed to lose.

Ruby swept carefully through the house, silent as death itself. She was filled with dark, savage elation as she snuck past Sam and Bobby, too focused on their research to notice her passage. In a way, this was a blessing, she realized. Killing Alice had been such fun the last time she'd done it.

 _Most people only get revenge once,_ Ruby taunted Allison. _I'll have mine at least twice. By the time I'm done with her, your sister will wish she never left hell._

* * *

Alice was completely exhausted and fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow. Her slumber was black and dreamless, but seemed to last a mere instant. She snapped back to consciousness with a shudder, immediately alert as though she had never drifted off in the first place. It was dark outside, which told her hours must have passed since she laid down, despite the feeling of timelessness she was filled with.

A chill ran down her spine and the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Goosebumps pricked up along her arms as a bad feeling swept through her. An intuition honed to a razor's edge by a lifetime of hunting, but more as well. Like one wolf catching the scent of another, sight unseen. There was something dark and ill-intentioned nearby, getting closer with every passing second.

Alice slipped from bed without disturbing Dean. He was sleeping as deeply as the dead, seemingly unaffected by the unsettling presence Alice felt clearly as her own heartbeat. She considered waking him, but decided against it. If this turned out to be nothing but the lingering dread of an unremembered nightmare, she would feel bad for rousing him. He looked so exhausted, and she wanted to let him catch up on his rest.

She pulled a steel dagger from her left boot and padded out into the hall with practiced, feather-light steps that made her passage all but undetectable. She moved quickly, holding the flat of the blade against her wrist. The technique would make it hard to accidentally skewer someone, but enabled someone with Alice's skills to flip the knife in a millisecond if she needed to use it. She stalked the halls of Bobby Singer's house, searching out a quarry that she hoped wasn't imaginary.

It was a big house and though she hurried, she felt like an eternity passed as she peeked into empty rooms. The walls seemed to breathe around her as she forced her own breath to stay slow, steady and silent. Creaks and groans came from the wood above and below her, each drawing her gaze, each threatening to be a monster creeping up on her. Her heart was pounding so loudly that she was sure the other thing in the house would hear it and know she was hunting it back.

 _If there even is a thing,_ she scolded herself mentally. She tried to make herself calm down, willed her heartbeat to slow, ignored the adrenaline pumping through her veins.

She made her way downstairs, where the light from the sitting room drew her like a moth to a flame. Sam and Bobby were in there reading, undisturbed. Alice let out a sigh of relief. They were both experienced hunters. Surely, nothing could have gotten past them completely undetected.

Sam looked up from his book just in time to catch a glimpse of Alice padding back upstairs. He thought nothing of it and set back to his task.

 _I'm finally losing my mind,_ Alice thought to herself on her way back to the room where Dean still lay sleeping sound as a little angel, waiting for her. _I'm getting paranoid, going bonkers, hearing things-_

Her thought was interrupted by a movement she barely caught out of the corner of her eye. She didn't have time to register it consciously, but her combat training saved her. She ducked and dashed away, her body acting while her mind took a second to catch up. Her assailant followed, attacking with a vicious series of stabs and slashes. Alice went on the defensive, dancing away like her life depended on it. It would seem that it did. This shadowy figure wasn't pulling any punches.

Two more slashes and Alice anticipated the third. She grabbed the wrist holding the knife, twisting with all her strength. Her attacker, a woman, wasn't without her own training. They stubbornly held onto the knife, grunting as they rammed headfirst into Alice's gut. The two went down, wrestling over the knife. Alice took a few hard hits and got in a few of her own before her attacker managed to wrench her wrist free of Alice's iron grip.

 _Who or what,_ Alice wondered for a split second, _is_ _strong enough to overpower a shapeshifter?_

They finally broke apart and in the instant before they reengaged, Alice saw who it was.

"You!" she gasped in complete shock.

"Me," Ruby grinned. "Ready to die again, Smith?"

She charged again and Alice was forced to dodge away. They backed down the length of the hall while Ruby tried with every ounce of power in her demonic being to end Alice's life, and Alice evaded by the skin of her teeth. Finally, one of Ruby's slashes landed and Alice cried out as the cut burned and steamed.

 _She's got a silver knife!_ Danny shrieked at Alice from the background of their mind. _Fight back! What are you doing?! You're going to get us killed!_

"I can't!" Alice yelled out loud, only realizing afterwards that she'd spoken out loud. She couldn't afford to be distracted by Danny right now. Her promise to take care of Allison prevented her from fighting back, but the shapeshifter whose body she had stolen was right. They were going to die if she didn't do something.

She needed help.

"Dean! Sam! Bobby, SOMEONE!" Alice screamed.

"Oh no!" Ruby growled, cornering Alice against the wall. "You're mine!"

Behind them, Dean burst out into the hall and spotted the two wrestling. Ruby had the knife over Alice's chest and was pushing it down. Alice pushed back with all her might, but she was slowly losing the battle.

"Alice!"

Dean surged toward them, but Ruby flung him back with a wave of her hand, sending him crashing down the stairs. The second was all Alice needed to reverse their positions, pushing Ruby back against the opposite wall and twisting the knife out of her hands. She held it threateningly over Ruby's chest, but hovered, unable to do anything more. The demon laughed at her, straightening confidently. She stepped forward, letting the tip of the knife press into her navel.

"Go on," she mocked. "Can you do it, Smith? It's been so long. Did that promise you made to Granny have an expiration date?"

She kept laughing while Danny screamed at Alice.

_Do it you moron! What are you waiting for?! Kill her!_

Alice couldn't do it. She knew better than to even try.

"That's what I thought," Ruby sneered, safe behind Allison's face. If she was wearing anyone else's skin, Alice would be able to skewer her. Keep the promise she made so many years ago...

A light bulb went off in her head.

 _Hey Danny. Think fast,_ she told him.

He was confused into silence for a moment and in that time, Alice relinquished her hold on his body. She sank into the back his mind, allowing him to take control for the first time since she had possessed him.

Ruby prepared to take the knife from Alice and finish her once and for all. Before she could, Alice went stiff. A look of complete shock and disbelief crossed her features. Ruby opened her mouth to make a smart comment, but paused when she met Alice's eyes. Instead of the shifting, swirling hazel she was expecting, she saw cold, piercing, unambiguous blue. It was Ruby's turn to be confused as she locked eyes with Danny Brontely.

"What the-"

Danny got over his initial shock quickly and stabbed Ruby in the gut before she could finish her sentence.

"Aaagh!"

Ruby cried out shortly and fell to her knees, taking the knife with her. She gaped up at Danny, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

 _Maybe that promise did have an expiration date,_ Allison wondered with a hint of sarcasm as she and Ruby watched their blood flow.

 _This can't be happening. She can't do this... she can't do this!_ Ruby shrieked in disbelief.

 _Whelp. She just did,_ Allison sighed.

It was bittersweet for her. She would finally have the freedom she craved. Alice had at long last won the war, just as Allison told Ruby she would all along. As for Allison, she knew she was hellbound. She knew what awaited her would be far from pleasant, but she doubted it could be any worse than the last fifteen years.

_So long, Ruby. I'll see you in hell, I guess._

Allison and Ruby waited for the killing blow to come, but it never did. Instead, Danny limped haltingly off down the hall, causing them further confusion.

 _What?_ Allison demanded, dread creeping over her. _What's she doing? Come back! Alice, no! You have to finish this! Alice!_

"Dumb bitch," Ruby purred, spitting out a mouthful of blood as she watched Alice stumble away. She pulled the knife from her gut and squirmed her way out of her jacket.

 _No!_ Allison screamed. _Not again! No!_

Ruby pulled her sleeve down, revealing a binding mark on her shoulder. It was one of three, marching in a line down her arm. The other two were slashed through, the cuts long since healed into pale, thin scars. Ruby broke the remaining mark, freeing herself from the spell that kept her sealed into Allison's body, that locked their lives together. She'd been forced to do this twice before, once when Rufus Turner nearly killed her, and again more recently when Bobby Singer shot her with an improperly restored colt. It left her open to exorcism, but it was a risk she had to take. Until the wound healed completely, she would be unable to bind herself back into this body.

The blood stopped flowing from her wound and she rose with a sinister smile.

This was far from over.

* * *

Danny stumbled down the hall, doggedly holding onto control of his body. Alice was pushing violently, struggling to worm her way back into dominance, but Danny held her at bay, desperation making him strong. He refused to let her take over again.

"This might be my only chance," he mumbled distractedly as he tripped his way down the stairs. Dean met him halfway down, grabbing hold of him by both arms.

"Alice, are you ok?" he demanded. "What's going on?"

"Only chance... only chance..."

Danny ripped away from Dean, his head spinning and aching as Alice hammered on his skull, raging against his suppression of her. Ignoring the hunters that pursued him, he burst out into Bobby Singer's yard.  
It was the dead of night and all was black. The sky was starless above, the lights of the nearby cities drowning out the faint glow of the distant celestial bodies.

"Alice, what's happening? Are you ok?" Dean demanded.

Danny gathered enough wits to manage to point back at the house. He needed to distract them, get them away from him.

"I'm fine!" he snapped with Alice's voice. "Ruby, get Ruby... get..."

He trailed off, his consciousness crashing against Alice's once again. He fell to the ground, legs giving out from the effort it took to hold her at bay. His mental strength almost matched hers and now he had the high ground, so to speak. He could make her leave his body, but first...

Sam and Bobby raced back into the house, leaving him alone in the yard with Dean.

"Alice?!"

Danny pushed Dean away, ignoring his persistent, concerned questions. He searched the ground, scrambled forward, grasping, feeling, dirt caking his hands and permeating his clothes he looked for something, anything sharp...

His hands closed around a long nail. Alice flinched and writhed away and Danny was filled with manic elation as he realized it was iron. It was perfect.

Danny threw his head back and opened his mouth as wide as he could. He shoved the nail against the roof of his mouth, scratching and gouging, searching for the binding link that prevented him from evicting Alice from his body.

"Alice, what are you doing?!" Dean demanded, surging forward and trying to stop him.

Danny sucker punched him with an animalistic snarl and frantically continued stripping flesh from the roof of his mouth. Blood dripped down his chin and his spit out a gob of flesh. Finally, he broke the binding link and the iron combined with his hardest shove yet pushed Alice's spirit from his body. She was hurled back with a shout, stumbling as she was stranded between the physical world and the veil.

Dean saw her exorcism and gaped at her with shock. Danny stood, pocketing the iron nail. He laughed breathlessly, spraying red from his bleeding mouth. Without another word, he took off running into the night.

"Shit!" Alice yelled.

"What the hell just happened?" Dean demanded.

"Not now! Get Danny!" Alice cried frantically, taking off after the shapeshifter. Dean followed her lead and they pursued Danny as he raced away from Bobby Singer's Scrap and Salvage, heading for the woods.

If Danny got away, it would be disastrous. Alice knew this, but she wasn't sure if Dean was aware of the stakes. This was about way more than her being inconvenienced by the lack of a body. With her spirit exposed, the reaper that was after her would find her within a day and drag her back to hell. Hex bags would help a little, but they would only delay the inevitable.

Ahead, Danny broke through the treeline and Alice followed, Dean hot on her ghostly heels.

"Alice! He's gone!" Dean panted, ducking to avoid a low-hanging tree branch.

"We can't let him go! I need him, you don't understand!" Alice yelled back, racing ahead of Dean as he slowed to a halt.

"Sam and Bobby need our help! We can't just leave them there to deal with Ruby on their own!" Dean countered.

"Ruby's dead!" Alice snapped. It felt strange to say that. It wasn't the first time, but the thought that it was the last hit her like a ton of bricks.

Dean slowed to a stop behind her and leaned against the trunk of a tree.

"Alice, he's gone," Dean panted. "We have no idea which way he went. Let's go back before we get lost out here. We can find him, maybe with a tracking spell. God knows I've read about enough of them the past two days."

"I don't have time for that," Alice said, looking around desperately. Paranoia crept over her as she surveyed the world through the veil that separated the astral plane from the physical world. These woods were home to their share of other ghosts and she could feel their presence all around. "I'm a fugitive, remember?! Danny's meat suit was the only thing keeping that reaper from tracking me down... he probably caught my scent the minute Danny kicked me out... oh my God, I'm going back to hell..."

"Hey, calm down," Dean said, trying to sound soothing. He tried to put his hands on her shoulders, but they drifted through her like she was nothing more than air. Her eyes were wide with panic, her breath coming fast even though she technically didn't need to breathe.

"It'll be ok," Dean assured her. "We'll find him. Everything's going to be alright."

"I need a body," Alice insisted. "I can't just float around like this, just... screaming into the veil. He's going to find me, fast. I..."

Alice had an idea, but she immediately knew Dean wasn't going to like it.

"I just need a body, just til we get Danny back. Just so I can hide. Dean..."

She reached for his hand, exerting all of her willpower so that she could actually touch him.

"Dean, I need you to hide me," she begged. "Just for a little while."

His brow furrowed in confusion as he tried to understand what she was asking.

"How?"

"Let me in."

"Let you... what? You mean, like..."

"Yeah."

"You want to possess me?!" Dean demanded.

"Not for long. And I'll let you keep control... you won't even know I'm in there with you," Alice assured him quickly. "Dean, please, I can't let that reaper find me. Please."

"Oh, man... this is... Jesus."

Dean took his hand from hers so he to could cup his face, dragging his hands through his hand and down over his cheeks.

"Alice, I don't..."

"You're the one who said we'll find Danny fast," Alice reminded him, a hint of accusation in her tone. "Do you really believe that?"

"Of course."

"So, this shouldn't be a problem."

"It's a big ask."

"It'll be like having something in your pocket," Alice shrugged.

"Yeah, except I'm the pocket."

Dean shook his head, muttering to himself.

"This is insane. This is crazy. This is too god damned... it's going to be weird as hell, you know that right?"

"Ok, well, the alternative is me getting my ass hauled back downstairs. I'll take a little weird over that any day."

"Will you be able to, like... I don't know, see all my thoughts?" Dean asked.

"Why, are you thinking bad things?"

"No! It's just..."

"I'll respect your privacy," Alice said impatiently. "Do you want some promises or something?"

"No, I... I trust you, I guess."

"Great. Can we get this show on the road before it's too late?"

"Ok. Ok, just... hang on a minute."

Uneasily, Dean took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. He pulled an iron ring from his right index finger and let it fall to the ground.

"Ready?" Alice asked.

"I... guess," he replied hesitantly. He didn't think this was something anyone could ever be ready for, but he kept that thought to himself. "So, how does this-"

Alice stepped into his skin before he could finish his question. He gasped and stiffened, shivering violently. It felt like jumping into freezing cold water. His vision went white for the briefest of instants, before returning to normal. Dean stood, cold as death, but otherwise unaffected by Alice's presence in his body.

"Did it work?" he asked out loud, glancing around to make sure she was really out of sight.

 _It worked,_ Alice sighed from the backmost corner of his mind. Once she spoke, he became aware of her and the space she occupied. It felt strange. Like having a room you never used suddenly occupied.

_Dean, thank you. You're really doing me a solid here._

"Uh... you're welcome," Dean said awkwardly out loud.

_Just think at me. I'll hear you._

_Right. Uh... well, hunters don't let other hunters get reaped, right?_

_Right,_ Alice said, amused by his old saying.


	29. Small Talk With Death

Dean made his way back to Bobby's, jogging and speedwalking in turn. In the back of his mind, Alice had gone completely silent, lost in her own thoughts. Even so, her emotions bled through the thin curtain separating her consciousness from Deans. The feeling reminded him of the ghostly echoes of marker print bleeding through to the page below it. Softened, blurred, but distinct, tangible and recognizable. Alice was overwhelmed with panic and worry. Her fear was potent and piercing, and it urged Dean to move more quickly.

 _It's ok,_ he tried to assure her.

 _I know,_ she replied, and he felt her pulling back into herself, doing her best to hide her emotions from him. Dean tried his hardest not to peek, but for someone who often came off as stoic and put together, Alice was surprisingly a lot less in control of her feelings than she seemed.

 _Yeah, well you're not exactly a picture of mental health either,_ she snapped in response to the thought that Dean hadn't realized she would hear.

 _Hey, I didn't mean that,_ Dean protested.

_I know. I'm sorry, I know. Let's just get back and find Danny. The sooner this is over, the better._

As Dean approached the house, he saw Sam and Bobby out in the yard. He called to them and sped up again.

"Dean!" Sam called back, racing to meet him. "What the hell happened?"

"Why didn't you answer the damn phone, boy?!" Bobby demanded.

"It's on the nightstand," Dean explained breathlessly. "Sorry. Did something happen?"

"Did something- I want answers, _now_ , Dean," Bobby demanded. "Where's Alice? She's got some explaining to do."

"What do you mean?" Dean frowned.

"My house is warded ten ways to Sunday, there's no way in hell a demon got in there without help," Bobby growled.

Dean's frown deepened to a scowl.

"What, and you think Alice helped her? Are you nuts? Ruby was there to kill her! She almost did!"

"If that's the case, why the hell is Sam being so damn cryptic?" Bobby demanded. Behind him, Sam glanced between Bobby and Dean cautiously.

"Sam?" Dean prompted.

"I didn't know how much you guys wanted him to know," Sam said in his defense.

"What? Sam, it's Bobby!" Dean exclaimed. "Why would I want to keep him in the dark about anything?"

Sam held his silence, crossed his arms over his chest and fixed Dean with a look of disbelief.

"Great question, Dean," Bobby cut in. "Is there anything you're keeping me in the dark about?"

"No!" Dean insisted. "I mean... there's stuff you don't know, but I wasn't... I didn't mean to..."

Dean struggled to find the right words while Bobby watched him expectantly.

"Look, it's complicated. I was waiting for the right time to tell you," Dean sighed.

"Well you can quit holding your damn breath," Bobby scowled. "Start talking, boy. And don't leave anything out."

 _Dean, are you sure about this?_ Alice piped up warily.

 _It's Bobby,_ Dean replied.

 _You keep saying that,_ Alice said suspiciously. Even so, she could feel the absolute trust Dean felt for Bobby, the complete confidence he had that the older hunter would never do anything to hurt them. It didn't completely allay her fears, but it helped soothe them.

Alice didn't know Bobby Singer, but she knew Dean Winchester. She trusted him.

"Ok. Everything, from the beginning," Dean assured Bobby.

* * *

Danny ran blindly, desperation making it easy for him to ignore the cuts and bruises he accumulated as he tore a trail through the untamed woods. He ran faster and longer than he ever had in his life, ran until he couldn't breathe or think, and then forced himself to run a little farther. Finally, the frantic adrenaline rush of his escape started to fail him and his body with it. He fell to the ground, paralyzed by exhaustion as the sun began to peek over the horizon in the distance. He was at the very edge of the woods, a few steps from a vast open field. In the distance he saw a highway, cars whizzing past out of his reach, too far to offer him the help that he so desperately needed.

Danny felt like he was going to die as he lay in the long shadows cast by the trees in the morning's first light. He was panting, but every breath hurt his stomach and none of them felt like they were delivering any oxygen. He felt like he was drowning, his heart pounding so hard from his mindless dash that he was sure it would explode inside him.

Slowly, his heartbeat calmed and his breath returned to him, though the cramps in his legs, chest and stomach were still the worst he had ever felt. He tried to get up, only to fall back to the damp ground, groaning in pain and frustration. It was urgent that he get moving again. The hunters were going to come after him, and when they did he wanted a hell of a head start. If he could just get to the highway, someone would help him. Still wearing the skin that Alice Smith had forced upon him, he could look innocent, battered, helpless. All he needed to do was get up...

He tried, but exhaustion overtook him again.

"Damn it!" he cursed.

He started crawling, slowly dragging himself forward through the underbrush of the woods. He welcomed the prick of thorns and scratch of brambles. The more ragged he looked when he emerged, the better.

Behind him, he heard slow, deliberate footsteps crunching the leaves and sticks as they approached. Dread filled him, fear and adrenaline giving him a burst of fresh energy. Shakily, he stumbled to his feet lurching and tripping as he tried to make a run for the highway.

"Going somewhere?" a woman asked alongside him. He whipped his head around to see who it was and tripped over an unseen obstacle. With a cry, he found himself face down on the ground again. He tried to pull himself up, but was stopped by a heavy foot in on the center of his back. He shrieked breathlessly and struggled weakly, but his muscles treacherously betrayed him. He was helpless as the woman hauled him to his feet. He recognized Ruby instantly, and nearly burst into tears.

He had been so close... so close to freedom, so close...

He squeezed his eyes shut and flinched away from her harsh gaze, wishing desperately for a weapon. Even if he had one, he was too weak to use it. He was finished.

"Look at me," Ruby snapped. She shook him impatiently when he didn't comply immediately. "I said, _look at me!_ "

Whimpering, Danny met her eyes, fear freezing his veins when he saw the cold black voids where her soul should have been.

Ruby squinted as she examined him, taking in his terror and lack of fight. The blue eyes that darted side to side, searching for any hope of help or escape. They weren't Alice Smith's eyes. This looked a lot like her quarry, but Ruby knew better than to let this simpering creature's outward appearance fool her.

"You're not Alice," she hissed. "Who are you?"

"I'm no one," Danny whimpered. "No one, not anymore."

Ruby shook him, dissatisfied with his answer.

"Don't screw with me!" she growled, tossing him back roughly against a tree. Before he could recover, she surged forward and grabbed him by the throat, pinning him to the tree while carefully leaving him with enough breathing room to speak. "Why do you look like Alice Smith? Talk!"

Danny gasped a clawed at her fingers, immovable as iron against his skin.

"My... name is... Danny. Danny... Brontely," he gasped desperately. "I'm a... shapeshifter..."

A long moment passed. Ruby let Danny choke as she digested that information.

"And Alice?" she finally asked.

"Ghost... bitch..."

Even dying of asphyxiation, Danny's hatred of Alice was clear and vehement enough to impress Ruby. She released him and he doubled over, clutching his sore neck and sucking in air greedily.

"You don't sound fond of her," Ruby observed.

Danny glared up at her with burning rage that did, for a moment, make him look a lot more like Alice.

"She ruined my life," he spat venemously. "Took everything from me."

"Join the club," Ruby snorted. "So let me get this straight. Alice's ghost has been possessing you, running around up here getting her second shot at life?"

She took Danny's silence for confirmation. The answer was illuminating. It explained how Alice had been able to 'break' her promise and stab Ruby. All she did was let Danny take the wheel and do it for her. Still, it brought up even more questions, and Ruby felt like getting answers from Danny could be a lot easier with a little tact.

"Alright," she went on. "Tell you what. I can keep torturing you for information. If I'm right, you'll have all kinds of juicy intel of what that cunt's been up to these days. Or..."

She offered him her hand, which he glared at warily.

"We could talk about it over a drink," she proposed.

Danny considered her offer for a moment. Finally, he straightened on his own, ignoring her hand and brushing some of the dirt and leaves off his clothes.

"I could use a drink," he said, tone calculated. Now that the struggle had edged away from life or death territory, he was regaining his ability to think rationally. To plan. "You caught up with me awfully fast. How about you use that super demon speed to get us to a bar somewhere far, far away from here?"

Ruby cackled and clapped his shoulder, making him jump. The kid was smart. He was trying to use her to get some distance between himself and Alice. Ruby would play his game.

"Have you ever been to LA?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"No. I've heard the weather's nice," he said cautiously, watching her like he expected her to start beating him up again.

"You're about to find out first hand," Ruby assured him. "With just one condition."

She tightened her grip on his shoulder and pushed her face close enough to his to smell the blood clotting over his many scrapes and scratches.

"If I zap you all the way out there and you don't give me some damn good information..." she said, voice low and threatening. "Well... let's just say you'll be begging for your old job back as Alice's bitch."

Danny shuddered, but it was too late to back out. The pair disappeared from the woods, leaving only disturbed leaves and brush to indicate that they had ever been there.

* * *

"So let me get this straight," Bobby interrupted Dean for the fifth time.

Dean groaned in frustration and covered his face with his hands.

"If that's even possible," Bobby grumbled. "This is ridiculous, even for you boys. I still don't quite understand how the time travel factor makes that much of a difference. The way I see it, you two are traipsing around out here with a ghost and a shapeshifter."

"A ghost _in_ a shapeshifter," Sam cut in. If Dean didn't know better, he would have thought his little brother was enjoying this discussion.

"Uh-huh. And neither of you see anything wrong with this situation?" Bobby asked, eyeing the two of them with disbelief.

"Look, I get that it looks bad from the outside," Dean began.

"You can say that again," Bobby snorted. "Hell, you could print it on a t-shirt. What the hell are you thinking, Dean? You're a hunter, for christ's sake! How on God's green earth did you think this was ok?"

Alice stiffened and prickled at the back of Dean's mind.

 _Cool it,_ he told her. _It's just a lot to process. He'll come around._

 _Yeah, or maybe he'll try to kill me like Sam keeps saying he will,_ Alice shot back.

"I know Alice," Dean insisted. "She's a damn good hunter, Bobby. She deserved a second chance at life."

"Spoken like someone who wants a second chance of their own," Bobby pointed out. "You need to get your head out of your ass and see what's really going on here. This isn't about how good of a hunter the girl is, or what she does or doesn't deserve. It's about what she is now, and what she's going to become."

"She's still the same Alice," Dean said defensively.

"Yeah, for now. She's also a restless spirit. You've been hunting your whole life Dean, you know what that means just as well as I do. So does Alice if she's as good as you keep saying she is."

"Alice is different!" Dean insisted.

"Boy, that's bull and you know it!" Bobby shot back. "Now maybe Alice can buy herself some time by packing herself up in shifter meat. Maybe she can keep it together with hex bags and incantations, but she's doing nothing but delaying the inevitable. Sam, remind me how many ghosts you and your brother have put down in your time?"

"Too many to count," Sam replied.

"And out of those, how many were sane enough to sit down and chat with?" Bobby pressed.

Silence enveloped the room while Bobby's words sunk in.

"Alice is running death a merry little chase," Bobby sighed. "But we all know it only ends one way, and it ain't pretty."

 _I'm not going insane anytime soon,_ Alice scoffed. _This guy doesn't know me._

At any rate, insanity was better than hell, but Alice kept that thought to herself.

"Where's Alice now?" Bobby asked.

 _Do NOT tell him,_ Alice said emphatically.

"About that," Dean began.

 _We need his help finding Danny,_ Dean pointed out.

"The shapeshifter she was in kind of... got loose."

"Got loose?" Sam asked.

"Kicked Alice out and took off," Dean clarified.

"So... is Alice... here?" Sam asked, glancing around with a frown.

 _No,_ Alice said firmly. _Say no._

"Well, she's..."

 _Alice, it's fine,_ Dean assured her. _Bobby wouldn't do anything to hurt you._

Alice didn't believe him. He opened his mouth to tell Bobby and Sam what was going on, but suddenly found himself unable. Without warning, Alice pushed Dean aside and took over completely.

"Alice went after the shapeshifter," she said with Dean's voice. "He ran off through the woods, she's tracking him."

_Alice! What the hell!_

_I'm not letting you get me dragged back to hell!_ she shot back.

_Give me back my... myself, damn it!_

_Don't tell them!_

_Fine!_

Alice gave Dean back the reins, so to speak, and he cleared his throat to disguise the rough transition.

"She, uh... she needs help though," he went on, trying to pick up where Alice left off. "I was thinking a tracking spell. Get a location on the shifter and go after him together."

"Uh-huh."

Bobby was eyeing him suspiciously.

"So, are you going to help, or do I have to do this alone?" Dean asked.

"Balls," Bobby grumbled. "I guess if no one's going to send her back to the great beyond, we may as well get her back into a host before she loses her mind."

 _See?! We could have told him,_ Dean fumed.

"Whatever you have planned," Bobby went on, "We better get to it fast. You've got a week left before your time is up, and we've got squat to use against Lilith."

"Do you have a ritual we can use to find the shapeshifter?" Dean asked.

"Tracking spells are a dime a dozen when you've got something of your target to get it started. DNA is preferable, but I can make it work with something she touched recently."

"Yeah. I'll get right on that," Dean said, standing quickly.

"I'll help," Sam offered.

"No, you help Bobby," Dean shot him down. He rushed out before anyone could say another word.

 _I can't believe you did that!_ he snapped.

_What did you want me to do, let you tell that salt-happy son of a bitch I'm possessing you for the time being?! He would never have gone along with it!_

_Bobby's helping us find Danny,_ Dean pointed out. _You're not giving him enough credit. He's just worried, is all._

_Great, a worried hunter. I feel so much better._

Dean took a deep breath, calming breath as he entered the room he and Alice had been peacefully asleep in only hours earlier. The sky was lightening outside, pale grey morning fog creeping across Bobby's junkyard. Dean pulled Alice's duffel bag out from beneath the bed and started going through it.

 _Look, just don't do that again. You said I wouldn't even know you were here,_ Dean reminded her. _Shoving your hand up my ass to use me like a puppet has a funny way of making it very clear that there's someone else squatting in your brain._

Alice was miffed and defensive, and Dean could tell that the apology she offered was half-hearted at best. It did little to assure him that she wouldn't take over his body again. He didn't dwell on it. He didn't feel like he had time to.

 _What's the best thing to use for the spell?_ he asked instead.

_Probably the knife I ganked Ruby with. Go see what Sam and Bobby did with it. You know what, I'd like to see her body too while we're at it._

_Maybe we should wait til we get Danny back to gloat._

_Gloat? Dean, that's not just Ruby's body, you know,_ Alice pointed out. _My sister was in there too. I need to give her a proper send off._

_Right. Sorry._

Dean was about to head downstairs again, when he caught sight of someone outside. He approached the window, peeking out to see a man standing in the yard below.

"What the..."

The man was in his mid-thirties, wearing a black suit and fedora and carrying a briefcase. He set the case down on the ground to pull a pack of cigarettes from inside his jacket. He took one and lit it, lifting his face to the sky as he took his first inhale. He was pale as death, with tightly drawn features that made his skin look mask-like and a little translucent. As he surveyed the house, he caught Dean's gaze and held it.

 _Shit! Get away from the window, Dean!_ Alice yelled at him.

 _Who is that?_ Dean asked, sensing Alice's recognition. She was also, he realized, terrified.

 _The Reaper that's been on my ass since I busted out of hell,_ she explained. _The only reason you can see him is that I'm hitching a ride with you. Act like you don't see him. Play it off! Quick!_

Awkwardly, Dean broke eye contact with the reaper and acted like he was adjusting the curtains. The reaper continued to watch him, slowly puffing his cigarette in the morning haze.

 _Will you please get away from the window?_ Alice begged.

_You said play it off!_

_Go play it off away from the god damned window!_

"Fine, geez," Dean groaned. He made his way back downstairs, where Sam and Bobby were setting up the spell.

"So, I was trying to think of things she touched right before the shifter escaped," Dean said. "And that knife she stabbed Ruby with came to mind. You have it?"

"Ah, no," Sam replied absent-mindedly, etching spellwork while he spoke. "We assume Ruby took it with her, but who knows?"

"Ruby... what? Took it with her where?" Dean asked in confusion. "Ruby's dead."

"No, Ruby's fine," Bobby said. "We saw her heading off the property like nothing happened. Disappeared once she got past my wards."

"Wait, so you're saying..."

Dean was shocked, but Alice was downright outraged. Dean realized he could see his breath, and quickly excused himself.

"That's fine, I'll just... maybe something in her truck..."

He rushed out of the room before Sam and Bobby could notice the dropping temperature.

 _Get a handle on yourself,_ he chastised Alice.

 _I'm handled!_ she snapped, but he could still feel her fury burning a hole in his skull.

_I'm serious, Alice, you need to count to ten or something. I'm breathing icicles, and that Reaper is poking around outside. I have to go out there and find something for this spell._

_It'll be fine. He has no way of knowing I'm in here. Just act like you can't see him._

_Right. Piece of cake. Just ignore the creepy angel of death skulking around,_ Dean scoffed.

Alice started singing 'Don't Fear The Reaper', but Dean wasn't amused. He took a deep breath, and poked his head out the front door. When he didn't see anyone, he tentatively stepped out. As he approached Alice's truck, trying his damnedest to play it cool, he was struck by the nearly overwhelming urge to look behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he was suddenly certain that the Reaper was standing right behind him.

 _Don't look,_ Alice urged him. _Just keep walking._

Dean pushed forward, fighting the desire to make a dash for the truck. Instead, he stuck his hands in his pockets and tried to look casual. He got close enough to spot the truck's side mirrors, and made a beeline for the driver's side. A glance into the glass confirmed his suspicions. He locked eyes for the briefest of instants with the Reaper, following directly behind him. Dean got in the truck and took another deep, bracing breath, ignoring the Reaper as it walked around to the passenger side of the truck and leaned against the door, taking a long puff of it's cigarette. It exhaled, then spoke in a voice like a scarf being dragged over dried autumn leaves.

"You know, it's been over three hundred years since I made eye contact with someone who wasn't dead yet," he observed.

 _Don't answer. Don't answer, don't answer,_ Alice chanted over and over in Dean's head. Dean continued going through Alice's things.

"Dean Winchester, I know you can see me. I know you can hear me."

Dean paused in his search, trying to tune out Alice's pleading as the Reaper finished his cigarette and let it fall to the ground.

"It's alright. I know my kind are frightening to yours," the Reaper said. Dean thought it was trying to sound comforting past the dry rasp of it's decrepit voice. "I'm not here for you."

 _Dean, come on,_ Alice whined. _Please don't look, please don't-_

_Alice, stop. It's ok._

_It's not ok!_

Alice's terror was overwhelming and it almost overtook Dean as well. He shoved it away, meeting the Reaper's eyes.

"Well that's a relief," Dean said, trying to force a chuckle. "I swear, coming down the porch steps I thought I was a goner."

The Reaper smiled at his humor, thin lips becoming white as they stretched up. Even so, there was no malice in his expression. No levity either. It was completely empty, a gesture made solely for Dean's sake. A mimicry of humanity no doubt meant to evoke familiarity, and by association, comfort.

"Don't be too terribly relieved," the Reaper said. "You are indeed very close to death. Otherwise, I would be invisible to your eyes."

"Yeah, I know," Dean sighed, once again reminded of the ticking clock that was his deal. "So if you're not here to reap me, what... you just came to watch the show when they drag me away?"

 _Stop making small talk with death!_ Alice chided him.

 _Relax, he doesn't know you're here,_ Dean replied.

Alice wasn't happy, but she did settle down, sinking into the deepest, darkest corner of Dean's mind she could find.

"Not at all," the Reaper replied. "I'm here for your friend."

"No idea what you're talking about."

The Reaper shushed him, and leaned in the window of the car, making Dean incredibly uncomfortable with their closeness. The Reaper took a deep sniff, eyes closing and opening again.

"I can smell her all over you, hunter."

Dean's heart sank and Alice wailed miserably.

"Your lover has evaded me for quite some time," the Reaper said, lighting another cigarette. "I would be impressed, were it not such a tedious time I've had of finding her."

"She's long gone by now," Dean bluffed, ignoring Alice's despair and his own pounding heart.

The Reaper watched him closely, taking a drag from his cigarette that seemed to go on forever. When he finally exhaled, he politely directed his smoke into the open air, safely away from Dean.

"We'll see about that," he finally said. "I don't expect you to tell me where she's gone, but neither do I expect she will stay away for long."

"She knows better than to come back here," Dean insisted. "I wouldn't waste my time if I were you."

"Well, you aren't me, after all. Where you are running out of time, Mr. Winchester, I am replete with it."

Dean shrugged.

"If 'replete' means you have so much time on your hands you don't mind wasting it, then by all means. Stick around a while."

_What is wrong with you! Why are you inviting him for a sleepover?!_

_Haven't you ever heard of reverse psychology?_ Dean quipped. He was only half joking.

Alice was at the end of her leash. This was not her day. Not even close.

 _Just grab the pack of gum out of the visor and get back in the house,_ she groaned. _Keep your skin off it or you'll mess the spell up._

"Oh, just no smoking in the house, please," Dean told the reaper as he followed Alice's instructions, using a tissue to grab the gum. "Lung cancer might not top your list of concerns, but the rest of us would like to avoid it. Thanks."

The Reaper held his silence, but Dean could feel it's eyes following him all the way to the front door.

 _Should we really be going through with this spell while this creep is tailing me?_ he wondered.

 _We'll figure something out,_ Alice said. _I've got hex bags for days in my duffel. Maybe we can slip past him after we get the location._

 _Alice, this is death we're talking about, not a prom night chaperone,_ Dean pointed out.

_Oh please, this guy is a joke. I've outwitted him this long. I've still got a few punches to pull._

Dean thought that was awfully big talk from someone who might have peed his pants only moments ago if she were in control of his bowels, but he kept the sentiment carefully hidden from Alice. He understood her desperate need to hide behind bravado in the face of such dire circumstances.

"No DNA," Dean told Sam and Bobby, who had all but finished the spell. "Alice is too paranoid to leave any of that lying around. I guess she probably touched this a few hours ago though."

He presented them with the gum packet and was met with raised eyebrows.

"You guess?" Bobby asked. "Don't go wasting my arcane ingredients on a hunch, boy."

"She touched it," Dean said confidently.

"Well alright then."

Dean placed the gum gingerly in a brass bowl with the rest of the ingredients and took a step back. Bobby read an incantation, sprinkled the bowl with a scentless liquid, then threw in a match. Quickly, he picked up a scrap of parchment and held it over the flames, just enough to singe, but not enough to burn. He kept chanting, and the flames took on a deep, unnaturally red hue. The smell of spearmint filled the air as the gum was consumed in the blaze.

Finally, the flames died down and Bobby examined the parchment.

"I've got an address. It's a bar... in Los Angeles," he said, sounding puzzled.

"That can't be right," Sam frowned, taking the parchment from Bobby. "There's no way he got that far this fast."

 _Not on his own,_ Alice observed.

"Not without help," Dean echoed aloud.

"From who?" Bobby demanded. "Sonic the Hedgehog?"

"Or Ruby," Dean suggested.

"Why would Ruby help Danny get away?" Sam asked.

"I don't know. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she saw something that looked like Alice, assumed it was Alice, and ran off to torture him to death, " Dean suggested.

"What, does Sioux Falls not have the right ambiance for torture?" Bobby snarked.

"Maybe the spell just didn't work right," Sam countered.

"The spell worked fine," Bobby bristled. "He's at the address that popped up. How he got there isn't really important. What we need to do now is figure out our next move."

"We go bag the son of a bitch," Dean said immediately.

"Hold up a minute, we need to think this through a little more than that," Sam protested. "Dean, you don't have a lot of time left, and we aren't any closer to finding Lilith than we were two weeks ago. Running off halfway across the country chasing this shapeshifter might not be the smartest thing to do right now!"

"So what, you just want to let him get away?" Dean demanded. "Maybe you've forgotten, but Alice chose Danny for good reason. The kid is a complete psycho murderer! We can't just let him run loose out there!"

"Dean, there and back, you're talking a four day round trip," Bobby pointed out. "And that's if everything goes smooth and we get him off the bat. By then, you've got hellhounds breaking down your door. Game over."

 _They're right Dean,_ Alice realized. _I hate to say it, but chances are, Danny'll be dead by the time we get to him. You don't have time to waste chasing him._

_So what, just give up?_

_The world is full of shapeshifters, and they're all monsters. I can find another host after we save your bacon._

Dean bit his lip, considering everything he was being told. His gut told him letting Danny go was wrong, but Sam, Bobby and Alice made good points.

"You're right," he said aloud.

Sam and Bobby both looked surprised.

"You're right, we uh... we need to get back to work," Dean sighed.

"Well, I have to say it's awfully nice getting a Winchester to see reason for once," Bobby chuckled. "I should take a picture for posterity."

Dean just rolled his eyes. Outside, he caught a glimpse of the Reaper strolling slowly through the yard, puffing his cigarette at a leisurely pace. There was a terrible thought lurking in the back of his mind, nagging him with worry.

 _Alice?_ he asked, unable to keep it to himself. _What if we can't save me?_

_What do you mean?_

_What'll happen to you if you're still riding my meat when the hellhounds come for me?_

_Ok, first of all, that was incredibly inappropriate,_ Alice snickered, but Dean could feel the uncertainty beneath her joke.

_I'm serious. What'll happen?_

_I don't know. We'll make sure it doesn't come down to that,_ Alice replied.

 _Maybe you should skip,_ Dean suggested.

 _And go where?_ Alice asked. _The minute I leave, that Reaper's going to be all over me._

She was right, Dean realized. They were backed between a rock and a hard place together, and space was running out quickly.

 _Don't worry about it,_ she said, trying hard to be comforting. _We'll figure this out by then._

Dean wasn't comforted in the least. He was too aware of the fact that Alice was only saying that to make him feel better. Too aware of how afraid she really was, for both of them.


	30. The End

"So what now? Are you going to kill me?"

Danny held Ruby's cold black gaze. He was shaking, even with three drinks in him, but the demon was impressed by his gumption. The shapeshifter was straightforward and oozed evil. She wouldn't call the information he had given her useful, but it filled in all the blanks. Answered all the questions she had about Alice's return from damnation. Now, she knew the full story.

"No," Ruby decided. "You know what they say. The enemy of my enemy is... useful to keep around."

Danny breathed a sigh of relief that he had been holding since Ruby zapped them across the continent. The demon stood, preparing to exit the bar she had deposited them in nearly an hour ago.

"Word of friendly advice," she said on her way out. "Ditch that face before it gets you in serious trouble."

Danny let her disappear without replying. The second she was gone, he made a beeline for the bathroom. He didn't need Ruby's advice. The sooner he could get back into his own skin, the better. He locked the bathroom door and shed Alice's clothes. In the interest of keeping a low profile, he would need to shift into another woman until he could get his hands on some more appropriate attire. He was itching to have his old face back, but he had waited this long. A little longer wouldn't hurt.

Danny took a deep breath and closed his eyes, picturing an old friend from high school. He waited for a long moment, before realizing the shifting process that had come so naturally a year and a half ago now eluded him. He closed his eyes tighter and tried harder.

Still, he felt nothing changing and when he opened his eyes, Alice Smith still stared back at him from the grimy mirror.

"What the hell!" he grumbled.

He tried one more time, glaring with every ounce of hatred in his being at the reflection that refused to change.

"Damn it!" he cursed, face reddening as he strained with the effort of trying to shift.

He was stopped by a stab of excruciating pain deep in his gut. He doubled over, gasping for breath as it intensified.

"What the-"

He cried out in agony and collapsed to the ground as the pain peaked while he writhed and shook on the dirty tile. Gradually, it subsided, leaving him weak, clammy, and shaken to his very core.

"What the hell..." he whimpered, slowly straightening to take one more look in the mirror.

Alice still stared back at him, but he had never seen her so afraid or confused.

* * *

Sam dreamed of someone's backyard. The day was overcast, threatening rain and the air was frigid. Despite this, a little girl in a white dress sat happily on a swing, kicking through the air as she played. Behind her, an old woman shivered and drew her coat more tightly around herself to ward off the cold. The child seemed unaffected by the weather, bare arms wrapped tight around the swingset chains as she giggled.

"Push me again!" she demanded happily of the old woman.

"Honey, don't you think it's time to go in now?" the old woman asked.

The child stopped swinging and turned to glare at her.

"Why? You don't like playing with me?" she asked.

"Of course I do sweetie, you know how much I love playing with you. It's just-"

"Just what?"

"Just... getting awfully cold out here. I don't want you to get sick."

"That's a lie. I think you're just a mean old hag who doesn't want to let me have any fun," the child pouted.

The old woman gasped, shocked by her words.

"May! What- Well I never... what makes you think you can talk to your grandmother like that?" she demanded, hurt.

Before the child could respond, a woman in her thirties emerged from the house, grimacing at the cold wind that greeted her.

"Agatha," she called to the grandmother, "It's so cold! Why didn't you bring her in?"

"I've been trying," the grandmother said in her own defense. "She won't come! And she's being terribly rude! I told you letting her go to that low class school would come with consequences!"

The younger woman rolled her eyes, while the grandmother went on.

"Willow brook would have taught her sophistication, or at the very least, common manners!"

"We're not talking about this again, especially not in front of May," the woman insisted.

"She's a mean hag, isn't she Mommy?" the child cut in.

"You see my point?" the grandmother demanded.

"My baby girl isn't anyone's 'point'," the mother scowled.

"Just an ugly old harridan who doesn't want us to have any fun," the little girl sang.

"May, stop that!" the grandmother exclaimed, her voice rising.

"Harridan, harridan, harridan."

"May, right now!"

The child stopped and glared at the old woman.

"I never really liked you," she said boldly. "I don't think we can be friends anymore."

The grandmother opened her mouth to scold the girl, but with a wave of the child's hand her neck was snapped before she could speak another word. The mother looked on with shock, struggling to process what she had just seen. The little girl's head whipped around and she shushed her mother just as she began to catch enough breath to think of making any sound.

"Don't scream, Mommy," she snapped, hand raised threateningly. "I don't play with people who scream all the time."

The mother stood, breath coming hard, shock keeping her silent more than the child's veiled threat.

In an instant, the girl's disposition changed, becoming sunny and upbeat. She started swinging again.

"Come push me Mommy! Come on!"

Sam's vision became disjointed, deteriorating into flashes and pieces of scenes. He saw a puddle of blood creeping toward a gray rug, a toy bunny discarded in a corner, a plaque on the front of a house, and ever so briefly, the little girl in white from his dream. She gave a sinister smile and her eyes clouded over, chalky pale.

Sam jerked back to consciousness, shuddering in the aftermath of his vision. Instinctively, he knew it was more than a dream. He stood immediately, wincing at the pins and needles that had taken hold in his legs. He stretched and pushed through the unpleasant sensation. Dean had one more day and Sam had seen what they needed.

He found Dean in the kitchen, gazing into the refrigerator without really seeing any of what was in front of him. The elder Winchester looked like the hell he was heading for, deep, dark circles staining his eyes, skin pale despite the consistent sunshine outside. Sam knew Dean was suffering from hallucinations and assumed those were what kept his brother housebound.

Dean hadn't told him about the Reaper who constantly circled the house, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke behind him while he waited patiently. For what, they couldn't be completely certain, but he and Alice both suspected deep down that the Reaper knew exactly where Alice was and was biding his time. The suspicion was unspoken, but keenly felt. Neither had slept in days and sometimes Dean felt like exhaustion was blurring the line between them. In the mysterious space that was the mind they now shared, it became difficult at times for him to tell where he ended and Alice began.

"Dean!"

Sam's voice startled them both enough to make them jump.

"Christ, Sam!" Dean exclaimed.

"I know where she is!" Sam said excitedly.

"What?"

"Lilith, I know where she is! We have to leave now! We have just enough time, we can-"

"Whoa, Sam, slow down," Dean grimaced, putting his hands up as if to push his brother's words back. "Back up."

"I had a dream!" Sam explained quickly. "I saw her, I know where we have to go!"

"A dream? What, like one of your premonitions?" Dean demanded. Alice's curiosity was piqued and she rudely started digging into Dean's mind for answers.

 _Knock that off!_ Dean said distractedly, struggling to pay attention to Alice and Sam at the same time.

Alice ignored him and in a three second span turned his sleep-deprived mind inside out, turning up every bit of information about Sam's psychic abilities that Dean had.

"Not quite," Sam explained, oblivious to Dean's internal fight to keep Alice from learning anything she shouldn't know.

 _What shouldn't I know?_ Alice demanded.

_You promised-_

Alice forged ahead faster than Dean could think at her. She hadn't made him any promises and now a spark of anger fueled her search. Dean was hiding something from her and she wanted to know what it was.

"I don't think it was a vision of something that's going to happen... maybe something that already happened, or is happening right now," Sam thought aloud. "It's not important. I saw where Lilith is. Isn't that great, Dean?"

Dean was too focused on Alice to pay Sam any attention. He collapsed against the counter top, wrestling with her mentally. It was like going head to head with a bulldozer. Alice had more experience with possession and Dean's exhaustion worked against him. His own thoughts would betray him if he wasn't careful. He couldn't think about Sam's involvement with Ruby, couldn't let it come to the surface...

_WHAT._

"Dean?" Sam asked, concerned.

 _Shit,_ Dean sighed internally, knowing he had just lost the battle. Alice plowed past him and in the blink of an eye, she had the full story.

 _There's barely anything to know,_ Dean argued weakly as Alice's anger surged.

"Dean, are you ok?" Sam demanded, putting a hand on his shoulder.

_Barely anything- Barely-_

Alice was pissed beyond words and she smacked Sam's hand away before Dean could stop her.

"You sneaky bastard," she seethed out loud.

_Alice, NO!_

"What?" Sam frowned, confused.

Dean took a jerky step toward him. He was so unsteady Sam thought he might crash to the ground. He shot forward, trying to help Dean keep his footing, but was rewarded with a harsh slap across the face.

"Dean, what the hell!" Sam demanded, reeling in shock.

"Stop! Don't do this!" Dean growled out loud, fighting with Alice for control of his body.

 _He's been working with that_ _hellwhore!_

_It had nothing to do with you! He was trying to help!_

"I'll show him helping!" Alice snarled, shoving Dean out of the way. She lunged at a stunned Sam, wrestling him to the ground and wrapping her hands around his neck. Sam fought back, but had no idea what was going on.

"Dean!" he choked, trying to get out from under his brother without hurting him. "Dean, what-"

 _Alice stop! Don't do this!_ Dean screamed desperately. He struggled to take the wheel back from her, but it was like moving through mud. Alice's grip only tightened around Sam's neck as she seethed.

"I trusted you!" she yelled with Dean's voice. "I trusted both of you!"

Sam gave up trying to pry Dean's fingers from his throat and instead punched him hard in the ribs. Alice didn't care. As far as she was concerned, Dean deserved the pain. She snarled something incoherent as Sam's face began to turn purple and Dean raged against her control. The air around them was freezing, frost creeping over the windows.

"Dean!" Bobby's voice boomed out. "What in the Sam hill do you think you're doing, boy!"

He tried to pull Dean off Sam, but Dean flung him back with supernatural strength. Thinking quickly, Bobby noticed the cold and put the pieces together.

"You stupid sack!" he exclaimed, realizing what must be happening. He scrambled to his feet and started going through a drawer. Beneath Dean, Sam's strength was fading. His vision dimmed, graying and blurring at the edges as his brother throttled him.

Bobby finally found what he was looking for and hurled a handful of salt at the wrestling Winchesters. With an inhuman shriek, Alice was forced from Dean's body, disappearing completely as the salt took away her ability to manifest. Dean collapsed boneless alongside Sam, breathing hard from the colossal struggle that had ended so abruptly. Beside him, Sam gasped for breath and rolled over, pulling himself to his feet.

"You absolute idjit!" Bobby cursed Dean.

"What the hell was that?!" Sam demanded.

"Your genius brother was letting his girlfriend's ghost hitch a ride in his body," Bobby snapped.

"What?!"

"Son, have you lost your god-damned mind?" Bobby went on, helping Dean to his feet. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I don't know," Dean groaned. Regret and shame pulsed through him as he waited for Bobby's 'I told you so'. He deserved it. He knew Alice was playing a dangerous game, knew that he was putting himself and his family in danger by helping her, but he had never imagined that she would go off the rails so completely. Not so quickly, not so murderously.

Deep down, Dean hadn't really thought Alice would hurt him or Sam.

"Where did she go?" Dean asked, glancing around for any sign of her.

"That's what you're worried about?" Bobby demanded. "There's a vengeful spirit on the loose in this house, apparently with some bug up it's ass about Sam, and your first thought is tracking it down? How about skedaddling and getting her bones burned before she really hurts someone?"

"We have no clue where her bones are," Dean said wearily. He limped to the window, and pulled the shade aside. "Anyway, I doubt she'll stick around."

The Reaper was nowhere to be seen. Dean shuddered, dread filling him as he thought about Alice being dragged back to hell.

"Look, we don't have time to worry about Alice," Sam cut in, clearing his throat a few time. "Like I said, I know where Lilith is. We need to move fast."

"How could you possibly know that?" Bobby asked.

"I'll explain on the way, if everyone else is ok with that," Sam said.

Dean continued to stare out the window, thoughts on Alice. Their situation became more complicated by the minute. She had crossed a line that Dean would have killed anyone else for so much as toeing... and yet, he understood her rage better than most. He had kept Sam's association with Ruby a secret for good reason. Sam's hands weren't clean in this equation either.

"Dean?" Sam pushed, interrupting his troubled musings.

"Yeah. Yeah, you don't need to tell me how close I'm cutting it," Dean sighed, tearing himself away from the window. "If you're sure what you saw was legit, let's get this show on the road."

* * *

Alice boiled with rage after Bobby pushed her out of Dean's body. She glared at Sam and shook off the salt, gathering her strength for another assault. Vengeance had pushed her beyond reason and all she could think about was how deep this betrayal ran.

"I knew you were loitering around here somewhere."

The words stopped Alice in her tracks, froze her soul with terror. She didn't need to turn to know that it was the Reaper. The nemesis she had desperately evaded for nearly a year now.

"It is over, Alice Smith. You could run a little, but you wouldn't get far."

Every second Alice ran was a second that she didn't burn. She hardly had a choice. She took off, hearing the Reaper heave a weary sigh as she left Bobby's home behind, her quarrel with Sam forgotten. The angel of death followed on swift, unseen wings and Alice found her path blocked just as she reached the edge of Singer's property. She slid to a halt, scrambling back.

"Little lost soul," the Reaper tsked, following her. He clicked his suitcase, preparing to open it. "Your fight is done. Come now. Rest."

"There's no rest for people like me," Alice growled.

"And whose fault is that?"

The voice was familiar and the last Alice expected she would ever hear again.

The Reaper turned to face the angel Naziel, regarding him with cold, tired indifference.

"Dominion," he greeted him. "What brings you here? Not the need to assist a lowly Reaper, I presume."

"He's here to gloat," Alice spat, glaring at the angel who had been her greatest antagonist at one time. "To watch me lose in person."

"You flatter yourself," Naziel said, a touch of amusement tinging his tone. "As arrogant as ever, Alice Smith. I'm here on orders. Heaven wants you."

Alice frowned in confusion.

"Heaven can't have her," the Reaper snapped. "This soul is mine and perdition bound moreover."

"You and hell will get your due," Naziel promised. "We're just... borrowing her, for a moment."

"You can't!"

"Who's going to stop me?" Naziel challenged, meeting the Reaper's gaze for the first time. He drew himself up to his full height, enormous feathers rustling as he spread wings that only he and the Reaper could see. The Reaper shrank back and turned away, closing his suitcase.

"Oh, the demise of the natural order," he sighed mournfully, turning away from his quarry and the angel of the Lord. "What times we see that the righteous assist the dead and damned."

He walked away, still muttering to himself.

"Melodramatic black-suit," Naziel said, rolling his eyes at his brethren. He turned his full attention to Alice.

"Now, child. It's high time you repaid heaven for all the damage you've done," he smirked menacingly.

He took her, leaving the junkyard devoid of spirits and angels alike.

* * *

The race to reach the address Sam had seen in his dream took the hunters across state lines. By the time they made it, darkness had fallen over Dean Winchester's last day. He had hours before his deal expired. Hours to kill a demon and hope that it saved him from damnation. If it didn't, he worried, it might not be too long before he saw Alice Smith again.

"So you're sure that Reaper got her?" Sam asked after Dean explained Alice's predicament.

"I don't see how she could have given him the slip this time," Dean sighed, tone flat.

"And you're... what, ok with leaving her in hell?"

"Of course not. I'm about as far from 'ok' with it as you can get, but... I just... what am I supposed to do about it, Sam?"

Sam held his silence. He had a few ideas, but the last thing he wanted to do was distract Dean from the task at hand, and if it actually worked and they managed to save his brother from hell...

"We'll have time to help her after we help you," Sam said at last.

"We?" Dean questioned. "You want to help her?"

"I mean... it's complicated, Dean," Sam admitted. "Everything Alice is and did notwithstanding, she was awfully hellbent on helping you when your positions were reversed."

"Right. The six months that never happened," Dean recalled.

"Yeah. I don't know... I just don't think I'd feel right doing nothing now that the tables are turned," Sam realized.

It was Dean's turn to keep his thoughts to himself. His heart was screaming at him that rescuing Alice should be his first priority, but not for the first time, he questioned the fickle organ. He would have given up on anyone else in the world by now. What made Alice so special?

"One thing at a time," he said, turning off the highway as they made their final approach. "Let's gank this demon first and worry about Alice later."

Sam nodded in grim agreement.

The three hunters parked down the street from the house Sam had seen and proceeded on foot through the neighborhood. The area was upper middle class, the houses nice enough that the three men looked out of place in the dark, stalking cautiously down pristine sidewalks.

"That's it," Sam whispered when they neared the house.

"I just don't get what a big shot demon like Lilith is doing playing house in a suburb like this," Bobby grumbled under his breath. "This all feels off."

"You can say that again," Dean replied softly.

They crept around the back of the house. The stench of death and decay filled the air, growing stronger with every step they took. Sam swallowed hard, fighting back vomit as they turned a corner and saw a body on the ground near the swingset. It was the old woman from his dream, abandoned where she lay.

"Well. We know for sure this is the place," Sam grimaced.

Dean dropped to one knee to pick the lock on the back door while Sam kept a lookout. Bobby's gaze was drawn by a quiet rustling in the bushes behind them. The lock clicked open under Dean's expert ministrations and the door swung inward with a low creak. Bobby tapped Sam's shoulder and indicated that he and Dean should proceed. He pointed at the bushes and Sam nodded.

"Be careful," Bobby breathed, so low Sam could barely make out the words. "This is too easy."

Sam and Dean felt the same. They had walked into traps willingly before and this had all the makings of one they might not walk back out of.

They left Bobby to investigate the rustling and pressed forward through the dark house. They split at a staircase, Dean taking the upstairs while Sam swept through the lower level. Dean tightly clutched the demon-killing knife Alice had gifted him as he tip-toed up the carpeted steps. He reached their zenith and proceeded down a hallway, peeking through door after door while his heart pounded.

In the door on the end, he finally found what he was looking for. A young girl in a white dress curled up asleep at her mother's side. The mother was wide awake, tears streaming from her eyes as she stared in terror at the ceiling. The girl, by contrast looked peaceful, the sleepy remnants of a smile curling her soft pink lips as she snuggled up against her mother.

Dean entered the room, drawing the mother's wide-eyed gaze. Dean froze while she looked him over, eyes settling on the ornate blade he carried. She met his eyes desperately, weeping silently.

"Please," she mouthed, eyes darting between Dean and the child asleep in her arms. "Help me."

Dean advanced slowly, getting close enough to see the girl's face. She was hideous, skin twisted and deformed, sharp teeth peeking out through distended lips. Dean swallowed hard, knowing this was the demon he was here to find.

"Do it," the mother mouthed when Dean reached the bedside.

Dean nodded and raised the blade. He hesitated, resolve wavering as he realized he could see the girl Lilith was possessing if he looked closely enough. She was weeping, just like her mother.

"Do it!" the mother urged in a harsh whisper. "Oh god, please!"

Dean steeled himself, taking a deep breath as he prepared to land the killing blow. Still, the moments stretched on and he found himself frozen.

_Can you really save yourself by doing things that will leave you damned at the end anyway?_

Dean told himself he could do it. He tried to tell himself it was for the greater good, not just his own soul. This was a high-level demon. Taking her out would save countless lives going forward. He could trade one girl for all those lives. One innocent.

Dean wished desperately that Alice was still with him. Alice could have done it without a second thought. Without a sliver of remorse.

But he wasn't Alice.

The demon heaved a loud sigh and opened one eye, startling both adults.

"So they were right," she said, sitting with a yawn and a stretch. She turned to face Dean, who readjusted his grip on the knife. "You are righteous after all. You may as well put that thing down."

She nodded to the knife and it began to heat up in Dean's grip. He cried out and dropped it to the ground, where it glowed red in the carpet and left singe marks.

"I mean, you had the chance to use it. You didn't."

"Ok. You got me," Dean said, raising his hands. "Let the girl and her mother go."

"What for? They're my new favorite toys," Lilith grinned brightly. Behind her, the mother curled up into a ball, sobbing. "Aside from you, of course."

"You knew," Dean said. "You knew we would come. That's why you took that body."

"Actually, I wasn't sure you would make it," Lilith corrected him. "I mean, all I did was send Sam a vision... I had no idea if he would connect the dots or not. As for May... well, she was necessary. I needed to make sure you were as much of a goody-two-shoes as they say."

"What for? Do I get a prize for being boy scout of the year?" Dean quipped, stalling.

"Oh, something like that," Lilith giggled. "You'll find out soon enough."

She looked past Dean and he followed her gaze to a clock on the wall. Ten minutes to midnight.

Outside, a bone-chilling howl tore the night to shreds and froze Dean's blood in his veins.

He had failed and this was it. He might see Alice soon after all.

"Hey!"

Sam's voice boomed from the doorway, followed by a gunshot that sounded loud as a cannon in the confined space. Lilith cried out as a bullet lodged in her skull, a line of blood dripping down her nose and staining her white dress as she went cross-eyed trying to see what had happened.

"Devil's trap bullets," Sam said smugly, entering the room. He spotted the mother and pulled her to her feet. "Run. Don't stop til you're far away," he advised her.

"My baby!" she sobbed. She took one last look at her child before taking off like a bat out of hell.

"Dean, what are you waiting for?" Sam demanded, gesturing at the knife that lay steaming lightly on the ground.

Dean lunged for the weapon, reservations gone. The girl Lilith was possessing was done for anyway now that Sam had shot her.

"No you don't!" Lilith snarled, kicking Dean savagely in the face. He was sent flying backwards and hit the wall hard. Lilith grabbed handfuls of her hair, screaming so loud and high that Sam was forced to cover his ears. The house shook so hard that cracks formed in the ceiling, raining plaster down over their heads. Sam watched, horrified as the bullet was drawn from Lilith's head by demonic power of a nigh unimaginable caliber. It fell into her lap and she shrugged it off with a look of distaste.

"You must not know who I am," she panted, taking a moment to regain her composure. Dean struggled to his feet, but Lilith threw him against the wall with a wave of her hand, holding him there. She turned to Sam next and he cringed, bracing himself to be tossed back just as Dean had been.

Nothing happened.

"What?" Lilith demanded. She tried again, but still to no avail. "No! You're not that powerful!"

Sam straightened, emboldened by Lilith's failure. He stepped forward, going for Alice's knife, still on the ground between Lilith and Dean.

"Stop! Stop right there!"

Lilith's command had no effect on Sam, who pressed forward undeterred. He picked the knife up and advanced on Lilith.

"Sam, what the hell is going on?!" Dean demanded from his position up on the wall. Happy as he was to see a sliver of hope for their survival, he was far more disturbed than comforted by Sam's apparent immunity to Lilith's demonic attacks.

"Yeah, Sam, care to explain?" Lilith asked, cocking her head to the side as she examined him.

Sam didn't have an explanation. He was just as surprised as Dean and Lilith, but he didn't want to let her see that.

"Maybe after you let Dean out of his deal," he said, holding the knife to her throat.

"I could do that... or I could skin you both alive," she pondered, seemingly unconcerned by the deadly blade and it's proximity.

"I'll kill you if you don't," Sam threatened.

"I imagine if you had your way, you would kill me even if I did," Lilith observed. "Sorry, brother. I choose door three."

She waved her hand again and Sam prepared to laugh at her. Before he could, however, a dresser crashed into his side, pinning him firmly against the wall opposite Dean.

"Nice effort, kids," Lilith said, slow-clapping ironically as she stood. "But this is game over. I win. Oh, I love games where I win!"

Sam grunted, pushing with all his might against the dresser that refused to budge. In the hall, he could hear a hound growling, breathing hard as it approached with heavy footsteps. Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock began to chime, announcing the arrival of midnight. Lilith held Sam, but released her hold on Dean, letting him fall to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, then froze as a hellhound entered the room. The beast was as ugly as it's mistress and nearly the same size.

Lilith waved at Dean with a sweet smile.

"Bye-bye," she sang happily.

The hellhound charged and the room was filled with Dean's screams as it set upon him.

"Dean! No!"

Sam's shouts were as loud as his brother's as he watched the hound, invisible to his eyes, as it tore Dean apart. Lilith laughed and clapped, all her attention on the show before her. Sam thrashed with futile desperation, crying and struggling against the demon's hold over him. In his despair, he didn't notice Ruby when she entered the room quietly. Not until she put a hand on his shoulder. He met her eyes and she put a finger to her lips silently.

Finally, Dean went silent and the only sound left was the slavering of the hellhound as it decimated his corpse. Lilith sighed, watching the handiwork of her pet.

"Now, Sam, that was a lot of fun to watch," she said, turning. "But it's nothing compared to-"

She stopped short, jaw dropping in confusion at the sight that greeted her.

Sam Winchester was gone.

"What?!"

Lilith screamed in frustration, punching the air and stamping her feet in a fit at the loss of her prize.

* * *

Sam tore himself free of Ruby's grip, reeling with grief and the shock of her teleporting him out of Lilith's clutches. They weren't far, just a few streets down from the house where Dean's mangled body still lay. Bobby's truck and the Impala sat where they had left them, as if nothing had happened.

"Sam! Get it together!" Ruby urged. "We need to get out of here!"

"You get out of here!" Sam snapped. He collapsed against his brother's car, sliding down to sit on the ground as his knees gave out. It was over. They had lost. Dean was dead and worse, in hell.

Ruby approached him again, crouching down to his level as he cried helplessly.

"Sam... Sam, I'm so sorry," she said softly.

Sam pushed her away, but she pressed forward, wrapping her arms around him insistently.

"I'm sorry."

Sam was too defeated and heartbroken to keep resisting her comfort. He accepted her embrace, sobbing onto the lesser demon's shoulder as he mourned his brother.

"It's ok. It's not over yet," Ruby said gently, rubbing his back. "It's not over yet. We'll get him back."

Sam slowly quieted, processing her words and pulling himself together as hope sparked within him. He pulled away from her and she let him go this time. His gaze was hard, the emotions that had overpowered him only moments earlier now locked away tight. He was ready to spring back into action.

"How?" he asked.

* * *

**The End...**

**Of Part One!**

**Look For The Sequel, Three Deaths**


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